


Origins

by Jabberwocky (Sisterwives)



Series: Origins [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Dismemberment Incident aka how Junkrat loses his arm, Friends to Lovers, Illicit Masturbation, Junkers go to prison, M/M, NaNoWriMo 2016, Nail Polish, Pet Pig Parents, Slow Burn, These two things have nothing to do with each other, well more like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-03 04:55:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 51,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8697352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sisterwives/pseuds/Jabberwocky
Summary: The origins of Junkrat and Roadhog. Junkrat finds a mysterious treasure in the nuclear wasteland of the Australian Outback and quickly finds himself a target. When a hitman is sent to kill him, he convinces the man to become his personal bodyguard in exchange for half the spoils. Their ensuing crime spree could be legendary -- if they can get over the initial bad blood between them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my NaNo project for this year, conceived on November 3rd. I'll be updating with a new chapter every Monday and Friday, as I proofread and edit! Tags and warnings will be added as necessary. So buckle in kids, because I've got 50k words of this beast to share.

Junkrat knew going in that the destroyed omnium would be a virtual treasure trove for him. The husk of a self-improving automated robotics factory was bound to be filled with scrap metal and wires and electronic miscellanea, everything that he needed to blow people up. Which was becoming increasingly more common, truth be told -- he wasn’t the most popular Junker and had become a little trigger-happy when it came to self-defense.

Plus, it was _fun_. Nothing compared to the sight of a glorious explosion, all fire and mayhem and people screaming bloody murder. If he didn’t have any scores to settle, he made it a habit of causing various objects to explode, an endless source of amusement to him. He had built a nice little solo life for himself, foraging for food and water where he could find it and entertaining himself with the little things, like tinkering with homemade bombs.

He had been thrilled when he stumbled across the remnants of one of the central omnium’s outposts: it was an engineer’s wet dream when it came to supplies. What he couldn’t use for explosives and traps, he could sell or barter with other Junkers. Everything was a commodity in the desolate Australian Outback.

He could tell just by looking that he wasn’t the first person to loot the place, but that was fine, he didn’t mind picking at the carcass. He’d take what he could get, and he figured that the further he went in, the more useful materials he’d find.

Junkrat had been rummaging around for about half an hour, gathering a nice little pile of scrap metal and electronic odds and ends that he planned on hauling back to his campsite, when he found the stairs. Beneath a fallen metal beam, he could see the beginnings of a staircase that led underground, which enthralled him. Basements always held the best loot. It was a simple fact of life that people squirreled away the important stuff in hidey-holes, and a secret basement was the hidey-hole of an entire building. Subterranean levels tended to be off-limits in most buildings, so naturally that was exactly where Junkrat wanted to go.

He tried to worm his way into the gap between the top of the staircase and the fallen beam, but it was too narrow for him to get through, in spite of his unnatural skinniness. “Well,” he said aloud. He had a habit of talking to himself, whether or not someone was around to hear. “Looks like there’s only one one thing to do.”

He rigged the beam up with concussion mines and a few sticks of lit dynamite, and with a click of his detonator, debris went flying. A chunk of solid iron narrowly missed his head, and he cackled with exhilaration. “Oh, that was beautiful! Almost brings a tear to me eye.” He clambered over the rubble and stared down into the gaping chasm that led to the basement. Several steps had collapsed entirely, and the remaining ones looked precarious, as if they would cave under the slightest bit of pressure.

Any sane human being would have turned back, but Junkrat was neither sane or a normal human being. He would risk life and limb (well, what remained of his limbs, anyway) in the pursuit of adventure. “Bombs away!” he cried, diving into the hole and crashing through the crumbling stairs. He landed on all fours, peg leg wobbling dangerously.

“Really gotta tighten that up,” he mumbled to himself, testing to make sure it could still support his weight. He could manage until he got back to camp and could take a look at it, at least. “Roight then.” He straightened up and surveyed his surroundings. He was in the belly of the beast. No man's land. It was obvious from looking around that no Junker had set foot here, and he couldn't help but giggle madly and do a little jig. The place was deserted and in hopeless disrepair, but _oh_ , the components he could find here! He could live like a king! Or at least feed himself for a few weeks without having to worry about where his next meal was coming from.

The first thing he noticed was the handful of dead omnics, whom he happily pillaged from (“Scrap heaps had it comin’”), tearing up their cold metal corpses. What _really_ got his attention, though, was the massive computer in the center of the room. A perfect curve, its console must have spanned fifteen feet, and Junkrat was in awe. He poked around the various compartments of the attached desk, finding a handful of USBs and a solar-powered tablet no bigger than his hand, which he promptly pocketed. Half of the massive computer screen was cracked beyond repair, but he was itching to see if he could get it working again.

By the looks of it, there was a number of problems at work -- a whining, stuck hard drive that wouldn’t spin up after years of disuse, cracked solder connections that had lost connectivity, and general dust clogging up the mechanisms. The dust was the easiest part to fix, and it was sheer luck that helped him revive the hard drive -- the platter hadn’t become fused, and once he’d removed the hard drive, it took a few vigorous twists to unstick it. It wouldn’t last long, as whatever had caused the stiction in the first place was still present, but with any luck, it would survive long enough for him to see what secrets the computer contained.

It was the solder failure that was the real tricky bit. He had a long-stemmed lighter that could work as a makeshift soldering iron, but he ran the very real risk of destroying everything by playing with fire.

Eh, he had nothing to lose. Worse came to worst, he wouldn’t be able to get the piece of junk working again, which was no skin off his nose. He used the lighter to heat up the circuit board’s connections, hot enough for the plastic connectors to melt and hopefully -- _hopefully_ \-- regain connectivity.

Reassembling the internal workings of the computer once more, he tried to start it up again and waited with bated breath.

The monitor flickered to life, and Junkrat let out a victory crow. It was impossible to see half of the data on the screen due to the black cracks that snaked across the surface, fanning out of a sizeable impact point, but he did catch a glimpse of a familiar word.

“Kajura,” he hoarsely whispered. One of many names for the Rainbow Serpent, an Aboriginal deity. He’d heard the myths before by word of mouth, old stories about the creation of Australia.

A god.

His eyes swept over the screen, taking in everything that he could make out. As far as he could tell, it was the code for a deactivated god program. Even in the Outback, he’d heard about Anubis, the rogue AI that had taken over and corrupted countless omnics to wreak havoc in Egypt.

Oh. Oh, this was... priceless information. A treasure more valuable than anything he'd ever scavenged, that was for sure. "Hooley dooley," he breathed. With shaky fingers, he fumbled for one of the flash drives he had swiped and stuck it in the USB port. If it happened to be portable, if he could just get the software off of the computer…

"Come on, come on, come on," he muttered to himself as the program downloaded, anxiously drumming his fingers on the dashboard. He had a bad feeling about sticking around this place.

He had to make sure no one else got their grubby mitts on this. It could be _very_ dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands -- not that his were the right ones, necessarily. He briefly thought about what it would be like if he could control omnics. “Make the bloody bastards off themselves.” He gave a guilty giggle and set about unscrewing the computer’s panel so that he could remove the hard drive.

Destroying it was the fun part. After stripping the hard drive down to the platter, he strapped the thin metal disc to a concussion mine, attached it to the monitor, and ducked behind cover. It exploded with a resounding _boom, s_ ending shrapnel flying over his head. He peeked out from his shelter. The computer screen was smoking, a gaping hole in the monitor, and the platter was reduced to shards.

“Rest in pieces!” Junkrat bowed at the destruction and kicked the hard drive fragments underneath the rubble.

He was still having a hard time believing his good fortune. He looked down at the sacred flash drive, an exuberant giggle bubbling from his lips.

“What’d I tell ya, Crunch? I knew it had to be the rat, what other freak is so obsessed with making things go _boom_?”

Junkrat whirled around so fast that he tripped over his own peg leg and fell flat on his ass.  The detonation had obscured the sounds of a gang of three Junkers approaching. He glanced behind them to see a rope ladder dangling from the hole in the floor above. They had actually thought ahead; he hadn’t even considered how he would get out once he was underground. He automatically hid his hand behind his back, flash drive clenched tight in his fist,

“Oh, heh -- g’day! Fancy seeing you here...” He was familiar with the trio. They didn’t get along famously with him.

"Whaddya got there, Rat?" The tallest Junker -- Crunch -- grinned, teeth sharp and predatory.

Junkrat tried to act casual and failed miserably. He shoved his hands in his pockets, tucking the flash drive in its deepest corner. "What? N-nothin'! Nothin' at all, why do ya even say that? Yer not gonna go findin' any treasure in this ol' scrap heap, that's for sure." He banged on the nearest surface, a hollow, tinny sound.

That got the Junkers' attention, and their interest was no longer that of sneering condescension. Crunch’s smirk faltered, and he took a step forward. “See, the very fact that you say that makes me think you’ve gone and found yourself a little treasure.”

“No, no, no, yer mistaken, mate.” He backed away, not liking the way they advanced on him. “This place is a dump, all I’m gettin’ is scrap metal and the like. Y’know, the normal things. What say I give ya a discount on what I’ve found, I’ve got some nice sharp things, make ya a real corker of a hook hand--” He nodded at the stump at the end of one of Crunch’s lackey’s arms.

“You sayin’ there’s something wrong with my arm, you little freak?” The three of them were all shorter than he was -- Crunch was the only one who even came close to matching his height -- but he was scrawnier, and they had a way of making him feel small.

“‘Course not, just thought ya might like an upgrade -- you’ll always have a weapon, can’t go wrong with that, roight? Better than nothin’, I bet it’s gotta be hard doin’ stuff without a hand. But -- but, no, no, y’ve got a point, a hook might make things worse, what if ya wipe with the wrong hand, hooley _dooley,_  that would be bad--” He could not seem to shut up, the word vomit spilling out before he could stop himself.

The handless lackey snarled at him, teeth bared. “You piece of shit, I will fuckin’ cut off one of your hands, and we’ll see who’s laughing then.”

He shouldn't have, but a laugh escaped his lips regardless, high-pitched and nervous. He didn’t like the thought of being handless -- he supposed he could make a mechanical hand, having manufactured his own peg leg, but if he only had one arm to work with, that would be exceedingly difficult.

“Easy, tiger,” Crunch said, placing a restraining hand on his riled up buddy’s chest. “He might not be so disposed to tell us what he’s hiding if we torture him.” He paused, another jackal-like grin sliding across his face. “Or maybe that would be just the thing to loosen his tongue.”

Junkrat desperately wished he hadn’t left his grenade launcher at the top of the stairs. He did the only thing he could think of: jammed his peg leg in Crunch’s stomach and bolted. His makeshift leg hobbled him, though, and Handless grabbed for him.

Unfortunately for him, Junkrat was in fight or flight mode and wasn’t having any of this. “Hands off the merchandise!” he cried, punching him square in the nose with a crunch of broken bones. “Hand, sorry!” he corrected, calling over his shoulder as he leapt for the rope ladder.

“What are you waiting for? Fucking get him!” Hunched over and clutching his stomach, Crunch howled at the third member of their sorry trio, who fumbled for a hunk of rock to throw at Junkrat.

It struck his peg leg, and he could feel it wobble dangerously -- there was no way he was going to be able to support himself on it. “Oh, you son of a bitch!” Below him, he could hear Crunch screaming at the other asshole. Their argument bought him some precious time. He scrambled to the top of the ladder as quickly as was humanly possible with one good leg and two arms. He didn’t waste time checking to see if they were following him -- he knew at least one of them had to be on the ladder by now -- he simply lunged for his grenade launcher.

Junkrat fired five quick rounds at the top of the ladder, the blast shredding the ropes. They quickly unraveled and, with the weight of three men on its end, the ladder plummeted to the ground. Oh, that _had_ to hurt. He peered over the edge and saluted them. “Well, I'll be on my way -- hey!” He jerked back, narrowly avoiding a chunk of rubble that went sailing past his head. Rude.

Junkrat had no doubt that they'd be able to get out of there regardless. If the three of them put their heads together like some kind of monstrous Cerberus, they were bound to find a way to escape. Hopefully by that point, he would have made it back to his camp, repaired his leg, and moved on.

Junkrat's theory was correct: the projectile that struck him was the last straw for his artificial leg. He removed it and sandwiched it between his arm and torso for safekeeping. He felt hopelessly susceptible with only one leg to stand on, and it hampered him greatly -- he couldn't exactly hop all the way back to his current base of operations. Sheathing his frag gun next to the tire on his back, he grit his teeth and clawed his way out of the omnium ruins. He'd never felt more rat-like, belly to the ground as he crawled, fervently hoping that no other Junkers would spot him and take advantage of his current vulnerability.

Dragging himself to relative safety took longer and required more labor than he thought. When he was finally safe back at his camp, he collapsed on the ground, chest heaving as he tried to stop panting from exertion. It took a few minutes of heavy breathing, but once he’d caught his breath, he reached into his pocket and closed his hand around the flash drive.

Junkrat pulled his fist out of his pocket and slowly, cautiously, uncurled his fingers. There it was. His treasure. It was his, all his, he alone held this source of immense power. He flopped down on his back and laughed, raucous and out of control, until his stomach hurt and tears sprang to his eyes.

He was a _god._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I said I'd update on Mondays and Fridays, and I will, but I wanted to leave off with Roadhog's presence being established, so here's a bonus chapter!

Junkrat had gotten to be a deft hand when it came to repairing his peg leg. He had to be, with the number of times he’d landed on it wrong after jumping down from some precarious surface or another. “There we go,” he said, tightening one last screw and testing his weight on it. He glanced behind him, irrationally twitchy since leaving Crunch and his lackeys behind. He’d set up camp fairly close to the site of the destroyed omnium post, and he had no doubt that they would be able to find him the second they got out of that hole in the ground.

Before he packed up and found somewhere else to kip, he needed to hide his treasure. Somewhere safe, where no one would think to look, but where he could keep an eye on it. He gnawed his lip, thinking. He had a theory, but it was risky. Not wanting to lose the precious god program in case his test failed, he backed it up to the small tablet he had found in the ruins, then reached for one of his homemade concussion mines. He snipped the wires, removed the internal hardware, and packed it full of shredded snake bite bandages, the flash drive snug in the center of the nest. He screwed it back together and pulled the spiked RIP-tire off his back.

He removed the motorised bomb in the center of the tire, tucked the deactivated mine deep in the rubber well, and insulated it with another layer of thick rubber.  His tire was a beast, sturdy enough to survive the blast of a bomb radiating out from inside it. He just wasn’t entirely sure the mine casing would be so fortunate when in such close proximity.

There was only one way to find out. He plonked the tire on its end, revved it up, and sent it flying with a mad cackle. It went careening, taking a wild, wending path until it violently exploded. Junkrat unplugged his ears and went chasing after the bouncing tire. When he caught it, he scrambled to check out the damage. The casing was singed but otherwise unharmed. A successful experiment, if he did say so himself. He let out a shout of joy and hugged the tire, which promptly stabbed him with one of its spikes. “It’s _perfect_!”

He couldn’t think of a better hiding place, honestly. No one would think he would be so stupid as to keep his treasure on his person, which was precisely _why_ it was an ingenious idea, in his humble, uneducated opinion.

But he needed to move. If Crunch and his henchmen had gotten free, his little experiment absolutely would have drawn their attention. It was why they had followed him into the omnium in the first place, after all -- they knew that explosions were his hallmark.

Junkrat packed up all of his belongings, hiked his tire up on his back, and hauled ass. He didn’t know where to go, and he found himself making his way back to the hub of Junkertown. He had a buddy who could hook him up with a barbie (for a price -- everything came for a price, true blue friends were rare in the dog-eat-dog mess of a shanty town), and after the day he’d had, he needed a decent bite to eat and a good night’s sleep.

“Oi, Wheels!” He set his rucksack down on the ground outside of Wheels’ lean-to. “Whatcha got for barbecue tonight?”

“Depends on what you’ve got for me,” the gravelly voice answered.

Shit. He’d left all the good stuff in the omnium outpost. He was unable to carry it with him when he was on all fours, just focused on crawling away from the scene of the crime. “Eh….” He rummaged around in the bag he kept slung around his hip. “Nuts and bolts for the ol’ wheelchair?” The only other materials he had, he planned on using for explosives. That, to him, was  more important than a full meal.

Wheels eyed the paltry offering. “That’ll buy you two prawns or a sausage, your pick.”

Junkrat drummed his fingers against his thigh. Slim pickings tonight. “I’ll take the sausage.” He forked over the goods, Wheels rolled over to his ice chest, and the trade was made.

It may not have been the most filling meal of his life, but it did his soul good, the whole barbecue process. “Get me a barbie of me own someday,” he mused, watching the sausage sizzle. His life was too nebulous now to be lugging around such a luxury, but a man could dream.

Wheels snorted derisively. “With what money? Your scrap could never add up.” He wasn’t being cruel, really, it was just a fact. They were a rare, highly sought commodity in Junkertown.

Junkrat tore off a bite of sausage, savoring the juices that flooded his mouth. “Eh, I reckon you’re right, but y’see… I may have recently come into possession of somethin’ valuable. People would pay millions for this, see, I’m gonna make a fortune! I’ll be rich, have a million barbies, they’ll be all mine!” He gave a crazed little laugh, imagining a life surrounded by the finest barbecue money could buy. He wasn’t sure he’d ever part with his precious god program, not when he could conceivably use it himself someday, but maybe for the right price…

“What a load of crap. You’re full of it, Junkrat.” He couldn’t blame Wheels for being skeptical, he talked a big game and had a habit of assigning value to things that even Junkers would call worthless junk.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not!” He licked his fingers. It was exciting, getting to be the cryptic one. “You’ll all see. I’ve got _power_ , mate.”

Wheels wouldn’t let him stick around for the night -- there wasn’t the space, he claimed -- but he found shelter behind the lean-to.and curled up on the ground, using his rucksack as a makeshift pillow.

He woke up in the early hours of the morning to a clamor.

“Where the _fuck_ is the rat?” He recognised Crunch’s voice, a thick layer of anger coating his usual smarminess.

“I told you, I don’t know!”

“Bullshit!” There was a crash as Crunch presumably kicked the wheelchair and a thud that sounded an awful lot like Wheels’ body hitting the ground. Junkrat winced. “Toothless said he saw you with him last night! Where the fuck did he go?”

“It’s like I said, I don’t know -- yeah, I saw him, he used the barbie, but I don’t know where he went after that, honest! What did he _do_ to make you this ma-- oh, don’t, I need that--” More clanging as Crunch took out his frustration on the wheelchair.

“What did he do? Fuckin’ exist is what, that piece of piss is a goddamn menace. No, he’s got somethin’ valuable, a _treasure,_  he said, and after the shit he pulled today, you bet your crippled ass I’m gettin’ a cut of whatever secrets he’s hiding.”

He had to get the hell out of dodge. Soon, before Crunch started prowling around the rest of Junkertown. Thanks to his big mouth, Wheels could confirm that he had something of value, and that would be the end of any peace he knew in the ramshackle town. Quieter than he’d ever been in his entire life, Junkrat picked up his gear and crawled away.

As soon as he was a safe enough distance away, he stood up and hobbled off, running as fast as he could.

He was dead. There was no way he could eke out a living bartering and selling scrap anymore -- Crunch was sure to let all the residents of Junkertown know that he had a price on his head.

He had no idea where to go next. It may not have been perfect, far from it, but Junkertown was his  _home._

He ended up in the wilderness of the Outback, as far as he could make it before the exhaustion set in, until he collapsed, chest heaving. He took in his surroundings. Even in the desert wasteland, there were a few tall shrubs that had either managed to survive the nuclear explosion or had grown after the omnium’s destruction. They bore quandong, the fruit a welcome sign of life amidst the irradiated bushland. Between that and witchetty grubs, he wasn’t terribly concerned about finding food to eat -- he’d been doing it his whole life, after all -- but he needed to find a watering hole. His canteen was half empty, and he wouldn’t last long without another source of water. He didn’t want to end up as buzzard food.

For now, he rested, using the downtime to replenish his stock of concussion mines and grenades. Only when he took a swig of his canteen and nothing but a few drops of stale, warm water hit his tongue, did he realise that it was time to move.

Junkrat was lucky. It only took a half hour of aimless wandering for him to spot a cluster of small trees and shrubs that heralded a dry river bed. “That’s more like it.” He drank his fill from the waterhole and stocked up his canteen. He spent the rest of the day entertaining himself by chucking rocks at anything that caught his attention.

What wasn’t so lucky was the fact that watering holes attracted other wanderers looking for sustenance. He was a light sleeper, and he woke before the gang of Junkers jumped him. It wasn’t Crunch’s crew, but a handful of similarly shady men that he recognised from around Junkertown.

Junkrat yelped and scrambled for his frag launcher before he could get knifed. It was five against one; even he wasn’t so reckless as to think that he could take them all on himself. Instead, he fled after unleashing a barrage of grenades.

“Give it up, Rat!” the gang leader shouted, tearing after him. He’d used three of his men as a human shield and shoved them aside to get at Junkrat. “We know ya got somethin’ we want!”

“No!” he shouted over his shoulder. “It’s mine, and you can’t have it!” He dropped a mine, jumped, and detonated it, the force of the blast propelling him through the air.

He didn’t know how he managed to shake them. Dumb luck, perhaps. It was the story of his life. He just knew that he couldn’t get lax again; he had to keep moving.

Junkrat was a walking target. It could all end if he surrendered what he’d found in the ruins of the omnium, but the more people pursued him, the more determined he was to not give it up.

He took to sleeping -- when he could sleep, that was -- with his frag launcher, clutching it to his chest like a teddy bear. But he was feeling the stress of not being able to get any shut-eye. It was only a matter of time before he slipped up.

After about two weeks of incessant fight or flight, he woke to a hand around his neck. He gasped, his eyes flying open, and fumbled with his frag launcher. As one large, meaty hand tightened around his neck, the other tugged his weapon out of his hand and threw it to the side. Junkrat’s death grip on the grenade launcher meant nothing; his attacker pried it away from him with ease. Like taking candy from a baby.

All Junkrat could do was stare at the face of the huge figure that loomed over him as his windpipe was slowly crushed. He couldn’t even do that properly -- the man was wearing a gas mask. It took him a minute to realise what was unusual about it (in his defense, he was losing air and couldn’t think straight): the nose of the mask was shaped like a pig’s snout, with a grotesque mouth of stitches.

Black spots swam in front of his eyes.

“If ya kill me, ya won’t get me treasure!” he blurted out with the last of the oxygen in his lungs. This gave the masked man pause, the thick fingers wrapped around his throat loosening ever so slightly. Junkrat sucked down another gulp of air. “I ain’t told anyone about it, that secret dies with m-- hrrk!”  His attacker’s grip constricted again, and he could only manage a strangled noise.

“Treasure.” It was the first word that he heard out of the big guy, and the timbre of his voice took Junkrat by surprise. He wasn’t expecting it to be so deep he could feel it in his bones, gravelly even through the wheeze of the gas mask filters. He would have found it appealing if its owner hadn’t been trying to crush the life out of him.

Junkrat tried to speak, but all that came out of him was a gurgle. He gestured at his throat wildly until the other man caught on and eased off enough so that he could form words. “Yeah, treasure! What, ya didn’t know about that? The hell are ya tryin’ to kill me for then!” Unless... he was merely the weapon, and the real person who wanted Junkrat dead was using him as a means to an end. “...Who hired ya?”

Junkrat took the ensuing silence as a sign that his hunch was right. “What’re they payin’ ya? I’ll pay double!”

The masked man snorted, his head tilting as he looked Junkrat up and down. “You couldn’t afford it,” he simply answered. Still, he let go of his throat. Money was the universal language.

Junkrat was affronted. “Says who?” Well. He _was_ only wearing a pair of tattered shorts riddled with patches, and his lone boot had seen better days. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to assume that he didn’t have much money. Or any, really. He massaged his neck -- there were _definitely_ going to be bruises the next day. “Look, here’s the deal, mate. Ya look like a guy who’s seen his fair share of crime. Help me with a heist or two, protect me from all the wankers who wanna off me, an’ you’ll get half the spoils. Fifty-fifty.”

The big guy considered it. He reached down to his hip and pulled out a hook, a beast of a weapon with enormous nails pounded through its curve, and Junkrat recoiled visibly. He could be eviscerated in a heartbeat with that monster. It was a nasty thought. He wondered if he could grope for his frag launcher without being noticed, or if that would just result in him being gutted quicker.

“So what you’re saying,” the masked man said, his voice low and dangerous, “is that you _can’t_ pay me?”

Junkrat licked his lips nervously. Oh, he was definitely dying tonight. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. “I mean, I don’t have anything _on_ me, but I _could-_ -” The hook glinted in the moonlight, and a fresh wave of terror seized him. “Come on, come on, give me a fair go, mate -- one heist! We stick up a bank, I show ya what I’m capable of, y’walk away with half of everything!”

The man stared at him for a long, silent moment, during which Junkrat saw his entire life flash before his eyes. He regretted not doing greater things with it. “One heist,” he finally said, sheathing the hook.

“One heist!” Junkrat exhaled. The relief was palpable.

The big guy hefted himself to his feet. Junkrat could get a better look at him now that his eyes had adjusted to the night -- he wasn’t just big, he was  _enormous_ , his hands the size of Junkrat’s skull. Junkrat wasn’t _small_ , he stood at 6’5” if he straightened out his hunched posture, but he felt positively dwarfed by the man. He must have been over seven feet tall, with a tattoo that stretched across his massive belly. If Junkrat squinted, he could just make out the words “Wild Hog Power,” flames, and the outline of a pig’s face. It was some nice ink, and he was seized by the desire to show off his own tattoo,  the skull on his right bicep flanked by twin sticks of dynamite. This did not seem like an appropriate reaction. “Get up.”

Junkrat blinked up at him. “What, you mean now?” He waited too long to obey, and the masked man grabbed him by the harness and hauled him upright. God, he could move him around like he weighed nothing.

“You want to wait until daylight?”

“...Fair enough.” Junkrat rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Now that the adrenaline rush of being jumped was wearing off, the exhaustion was catching up to him. He hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in weeks. “It’s gonna be a hike to the nearest bank, though, I don’t rightly know how to get there from here--”

“I do,” the man said shortly. He stepped aside, and Junkrat could see a chopper parked some distance away.

“Ah.” Well, this was happening. He grabbed his bag and his grenade launcher and followed him to the motorcycle. He glanced at the weapon in his hand. He could shoot him. He could launch a grenade at him, but there were a few problems with that particular line of thought. Chances were that he was too close and the blast would hurt him as well. He doubted one grenade would do all that much damage; the man was built like a brick shithouse. And his hand was on a gun of his own.

Junkrat cleared his throat. He kept his frag launcher at his side.

The masked man climbed onto his motorcycle. “Get on,” he grunted.

Junkrat twiddled his fingers. “Think if I’m sharin’ a bike with ya, I should probably know yer name first.”

The man gave a low grumble that spoke volumes. Junkrat guessed he couldn’t really blame him. Names held power. So few Junkers knew others’ birth names, even those whom they considered comrades. Still, he needed _something_ to call him by.

“See, I’ll go first,” he persisted. “Y’can call me Junkrat.” He slung a leg over the bike. With the size of the guy, he couldn’t sit comfortably on the backseat, the grenade launcher that was wedged between the two of them the only thing that kept him from sliding up against his back.

He had no idea what to do with his hands. He settled for gripping the straps of the other man’s harness. The engine of the motorcycle hummed to life.

“Roadhog.” The masked man floored it, and a cloud of dust kicked up as the chopper peeled off.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday! Here's a new chapter, containing one of my fave dialogue exchanges I've ever written tbfh.

Junkrat was pretty sure he knew how Roadhog got his nickname. There were the obvious comparisons -- the hog tattoo, the stomach that could rival a potbellied pig's -- but it was his command of the road that made the name so apt. They were the only ones around for miles, but Junkrat had no doubt that he wouldn't be liable to share the road if there had been other people present. He was a man on a mission, a hulking beast with no qualms about mowing down whatever had the misfortune of being in his path. Junkrat was fairly certain they left at least one flattened snake in their wake.

It was terrifying, to say the least. Junkrat wasn't used to travel by vehicle in general, and he had certainly never gone this fast before. He clutched Roadhog's straps for dear life, cheek pressed into his back in spite of himself. He had to marvel at the surrealness of it all. Just moments before, the man had been trying to kill him. Now he was clinging onto him for dear life.

After what felt like an eternity, they pulled into a small town on the outskirts of the Outback, just far enough from the site of the omnium explosion to avoid the worst of the radiation poisoning.

“You,” Junkrat pronounced, climbing off the bike onto shaky legs, “are an absolute madman.” He wasn't entirely confident that his one good leg wouldn't give out on him. Without thinking, he tried to brace one hand against Roadhog's arm. This was a poor decision on his part.

Roadhog grabbed his arm and twisted it painfully. “Don't touch me. The chopper is an exception.”

Junkrat swallowed and nodded, the pain making his eyes water. “Gotcha, roight, sorry, won’t happen again.”

“Good.” Roadhog folded his arms across his massive chest. “You said you’d show me what you’re capable of. Let’s see it.”

Well, that wasn’t placing any pressure on him at all. Junkrat scrabbled about in his bag for the latest batch of explosives. He was running low on supplies -- all the running around of the past few weeks left him with barely any time to scavenge for bomb-making materials -- but he was pretty sure he had enough to do the trick. He attached a few concussion mines and his remaining blocks of manufactured C-4 to the outer wall of the bank. Roadhog simply stood there, watching as he messed with the tangle of wires.

“Yer, ah, gonna want to get away from all this,” he advised, waggling his detonator. Roadhog grunted in what Junkrat assumed was acknowledgement, and they retreated to safety. Roadhog reached for the gun at his hip once more (insurance, Junkrat guessed -- they had no way of knowing what kind of security lay inside), and in the light of the streetlamps, Junkrat got a clear look at the make of it.

“Scrap gun, eh? You a Junker? Why don’t I know you then?” He was fairly certain he’d remember a man who looked like Roadhog.

“You don’t know everyone in Junkertown. And I’ve kept a low profile as of late. I’ve been busy.” Junkrat was pretty sure he had a good idea of what _busy_ entailed, if the man had been hired to kill him.

An entirely inappropriate laugh tumbled out of him at the thought of someone so huge trying to keep a low profile. “How ya pull that off? Yer the size of a house, mate--” He clamped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late, and he was promptly decked. “Oh, ya son of a _bitch_ , that _hurt!_ ” He touched his cheek and pulled his hand away to find blood on the tips of his fingers. The spikes on Roadhog’s knuckles had torn up his face.

“Good. It was supposed to.”

“Guess I kind of had it comin’,” Junkrat admitted with a mumble, hand still pressed to his cheek. Fuck, he was going to need a plaster for this one.

“You did. Get moving.”

Junkrat’s thumb hovered over the detonator, but there was still one burning question he _had_ to get out. “I just don’t get it -- ya have the gun, all those other weapons yer carryin’ around, why didn’t ya just gun me down when I was sleepin’?”

“It was in the contract.”

“What-- what fuckin’ contract?” Junkrat spluttered.

Roadhog looked directly at him, and Junkrat couldn’t suppress a shiver. He couldn’t see past the thick lenses of his gas mask, and it was eerie as all get out. “My employer specifically requested a slow and painful death. Namely that you have all the life drained out of you.”

“O-oh.”

“For a rat, you’ve made a lot of enemies.”

He couldn’t deny that. He was a thief and a scavenger who liked to play with fire. There was just something about him that tended to rub people the wrong way.

And after this heist, he was bound to make many more enemies.

Eh, no matter.

Junkrat pressed the button of his detonator, and the brick wall of the bank exploded in a glorious blast of fire and rubble. It was beautiful, really, but he couldn't just sit around and appreciate the chaos. Roadhog was already heading straight for the gaping hole in the wall, with or without him, and he quickly followed.

After the dust settled, no security guards came rushing at them. Apparently the town was small and crime-free enough that it didn't warrant overnight security guards. All they had to worry about were motion sensors, security cameras, and silent alarms. Junkrat was reasonably sure neither of them cared about getting caught on camera, and with any luck they would be in and out before any cops showed up.

It was a small bank, probably the only one in the little backwoods town, and it was easy to find the vault where the cash reserves were kept. Roadhog looked at him expectantly, and Junkrat reached for another mine -- only to find that he was fresh out. He had the frag launcher, sure, but even a barrage of grenades wouldn’t get him through the thick cast iron. The best he could produce was a few sticks of dynamite. He attached them to the vault door, lit them, plugged his ears, and prayed that it would be enough to do the trick.

The dynamite exploded, and when the smoke cleared, it didn’t appear to have made much of a difference. He tried the door, but while he thought it felt a little loose, he couldn’t make it budge.

He was _definitely_ dying tonight. He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, and looked up at Roadhog with a shrug and a sheepish smile that he hoped conveyed _“Please don’t kill me.”_

Roadhog sighed, a distorted wheeze through his gas mask’s filter. “Move.”

Junkrat hastened to obey, skirting around the much larger man. Roadhog pulled the hook out of its sheath on his hip, and Junkrat noticed that it was attached to a long length of heavy chain spooled behind him.

Roadhog fired it at the vault, where it hooked onto the door’s handle. Junkrat watched, bug-eyed, as he yanked on the chain with inhuman strength. The man must have been over 500 pounds, and with all his weight behind him, the vault door creaked until it popped off its hinges with a groan.

Junkrat gave a crow of delight and ran into the steel-reinforced concrete room. He had never seen this much money in his life -- he had rarely seen money, period. Junkers dealt in scrap and components, not coloured bills that were useless in a lawless society. He stuffed bundles of cash in his rucksack, as much as he could fit, while Roadhog scooped up an armful of his own. He tucked the stacks of bills under the straps of his harness.

“Come on!” Roadhog said. Junkrat’s fingers itched to pick up more money, but he listened to Roadhog and followed.

They weren’t alone when they escaped out of the hole in the wall.

“Police! Don’t move!” The parking lot was swarmed with three police cars. Several officers were armed with guns, all of which were pointed at the two of them.

Well, neither of them was about to obey _that_ order. Roadhog flung his hook at the nearest cop, sending him smashing into the brick wall. Junkrat laughed hysterically and fired off his frag launcher at the other officers to clear their path to Roadhog’s motorcycle. One of them managed to get off a shot before a grenade burst in his face. It clipped Roadhog’s harness, but the massive man shrugged it off like it was nothing, barreling straight for his bike.

Junkrat launched another barrage of grenades behind him as he dashed after Roadhog, not fully trusting him not to leave without him. They sped off into the distance, Junkrat cackling as bullets from the only officer who had remained standing flew past him.

He was breathless with laughter by the time Roadhog deemed it safe for them to pull over. He couldn't remember the last time he had so much fun. There was nothing more exhilarating than a narrow brush with the law.

“Oh, that was _bomb_ \--”

Roadhog had no time for his puns. “The money.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Junkrat emptied his bag and pooled it with Roadhog's haul. His cheek was still bleeding, so he patched it up while Roadhog divided their earnings into two equal piles. Fifty-fifty.

Junkrat stared at his half of the loot. He could not believe how much cash he had. He could buy the good stuff, instead of scavenging for all of the parts for his various explosives or figuring out how best to steal supplies from legitimate sources. He could eat a proper meal that someone else cooked for him. Having cash opened up a whole new world of opportunities he had never considered. He started fantasizing about what the first meal he'd buy would be. One time, he had kangaroo meat, and it had been the best thing he'd ever tasted.

“Do normal people eat kangaroos?” he asked.

Roadhog looked up from where he had been thumbing through his share of the money. “What is wrong with you?”

Junkrat wasn't sure whether this was an answer to his question or a reaction to what he now realised had been a non-sequitur. He didn't always think to verbalise the leaps his brain made, assuming that everyone else would understand the connections. “Is that a no, then?”

The noise Roadhog made in response was indecipherable to him, but he didn't want to press the issue. He still had the feeling that Roadhog wouldn't hesitate to snap his neck.

He watched Roadhog out of the corner of his eye, attempting to surreptitiously gauge what his next move would be. He had gotten his payment; he could walk away now. Junkrat found that he didn’t like the idea -- even if Roadhog was a cold-blooded murderer who had tried to kill him, it had been strangely nice to have the company.

You didn’t realise how lonely you were until you spent time around other people.

“Look, I know we said just one heist, but come on, that was brilliant. We make a good team! You hook 'em, I'll cook 'em.”

“Shut up.” Roadhog continued counting his money.

“I’m serious, though. What if we made this a two man gig? Face it, I need an enforcer to protect myself from blokes like you. Y’could keep half of everythin’ -- it’d be mutually beneficial, like.”

Roadhog considered this. “Fifty-fifty,” he finally said.

Junkrat clapped his hands. “Fifty-fifty! It's a deal. S’long as ya don't try to strangle me again.”

“As long as you don't give me reason to, I'll refrain.” His voice was low and even, but no longer outright menacing.

Junkrat grinned. “I'll do me best. Cheers, mate.“

“I’m not your mate. We’re not friends.”

Junkrat's tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Roight, sorry, just a phrase. Professional associates, then!” he corrected with an airy wave of his hand.

“That's better.” Roadhog pocketed a thick wad of cash and stored the remainder in the boot of his motorcycle.

“Well then, professional associate, whaddya say we get a bite to eat?” It was starting to get light out now; he was sure places would be opening for breakfast soon. “Celebrate the start of a beautiful partnership and a successful heist and all that. I could really go for a nice steak dinner, if anywhere has 'em this early…”

“I don't eat meat.”

Junkrat's eyebrows shot up. “Whaddya mean ya don't eat meat?”

Roadhog pointed a ringed finger at one of the patches on his harness. Junkrat hadn't noticed the patches before, too distracted by the gas mask and the weapons and every intimidating feature he possessed to notice such a tiny detail. He squinted at the white patch, a hunk of meat with a red slash through it. He couldn't help it, he was surprised, and he said as much.

“I can't believe ya don't eat meat. You look like you could eat me.”

Roadhog's hand clenched into a fist, and Junkrat noticed the brass knuckles that spelled “LEFT.” They looked like they would hurt like hell. Once again, he belatedly realised that he'd put his foot in his mouth.

“Don't you _ever_ shut up?”

He giggled nervously. “I'll work on it, that's a promise. So yer what, a vegetarian?” He was still hung up on the concept. It just boggled him -- in Junkertown, you took what you could get when it came to food. Camel meat, grubs, desert fruit, a meal was a meal. You couldn't afford to have morals about what went in you.

“Something like that. I don’t owe you an explanation of my eating habits.”

Junkrat held up his hands in surrender. “Alright, just curious, don’t bite me head off. Either way, let’s get some brekkie. I’m starvin’ and wanna spend some of this money.”

They found a quiet roadside diner, where Junkrat gorged himself on food he only dreamed of in Junkertown. He was fairly certain Roadhog was judging him for stuffing fistfuls of bacon into his mouth, but he didn’t really care.

Roadhog ordered pancakes, and Junkrat was beyond curious to see what lay beneath the gas mask. He was strangely disappointed when Roadhog merely pushed it up, only exposing a strong jaw and plump lips.

“Don’t ya think it’d be, ah, more comfortable to just take the mask off?” Junkrat asked as he slathered avocado on a piece of toast.

“The mask stays on.”

Junkrat squinted across the table at him. “Who _are_ you?” he asked. Junkrat knew that he was eccentric, and that was putting it lightly, but even he found his new partner in crime odd.

Roadhog didn’t answer, so Junkrat tried another topic of conversation. He nodded at the rings on Roadhog’s hand. “So why the word ‘left’? Do ya forget which hand is which? Because there’s no shame in that, I can barely tell me left from--”

“Shut up and eat,” Roadhog interrupted. “You didn’t hire me for polite conversation.”

Junkrat sighed. “Well, don’t _you_ have a sparklin’ personality,” he muttered. He ripped into another piece of bacon and hoped that Roadhog took it personally.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter provides us with new tags! Hurray! Anyways, it's a Monday, hope you have a good week.

The first night was the most awkward.

They set up camp in an area with patchy vegetation. Junkrat found some bush tomatoes and speared a few lizards for a late dinner, while Roadhog rustled up some pigweed roots. It took every ounce of self-control Junkrat possessed to keep from making some kind of snarky joke about how of _course_ the pig went for pigweed.

Junkrat was brushing scraps of food off his RIP-tire, which he had used as a table, when Roadhog spoke up. "You can sleep first. I'll wake you when it's your watch."

Junkrat hadn’t even considered the possibility of sleeping in shifts, but it made sense given the circumstances. That was one perk of having a bodyguard right there. “Yeah, yeah, good idea. I am pretty tired, anyway.” He paused, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face as he pointed at the RIP-tire. “ _Tire_ - _d_! Get it?”

Roadhog didn’t answer.

Maybe he didn’t get it. “‘Cause I use a tire, and it’s in the wor--”

“I get it.”

Junkrat let out a huff of air. No one appreciated his wit.

He took his peg leg off to sleep, letting his limb breathe. He didn’t usually do it around strangers -- he felt vulnerable when he was limbless, and he hated that feeling. At the same time, he hadn’t been able to do so in a long time. Before tonight, he had taken to sleeping with his peg leg strapped on in case he needed to make a quick getaway, and even then, his sleep had been fitful. He hoped that he would be able to get a good night’s rest for the first time in what felt like forever, now that he could relieve some of the chafing of his prosthetic.

It took him a long time to fall asleep, oddly self-conscious in a way he’d never been before. Roadhog was intimidating, and the last time he’d been asleep around him, he had almost died. He dug out a bed for himself in the dirt, tossing and turning fitfully.

“Do you ever stop moving?”

Junkrat stopped in his tracks, going still on the left side of his body. After a few minutes of attempting to sleep like that, his left arm fell asleep. He carefully, slowly, so as not to provoke Roadhog’s ire, rolled over to his right side.

Eventually he passed out. He was in the middle of a dream where he was soaring through the air, tossing bombs on unsuspecting villages, when he was rudely awoken with a violent jolt. He kept his eyes shut, trying to return to his dream state, and swatted at Roadhog’s hand. “Oi! Shove off, ya drongo!” There was a whoosh of air by his head and a _clang_ in his ear, and his eyes flew open to find himself pinned to the ground, Roadhog’s meat hook around his neck.

“It’s your watch.”

“Bloody hell-- okay!” He craned his neck and wriggled out from under the sharp hook, losing another patch of hair in the process. “I’m up! I’m up.” He was still breathing heavily as Roadhog removed his multitude of weapons, piled them up, and settled down to sleep.

Junkrat had no idea what time it was. His brain told him that it was the dead of night and he should be asleep, but his heart was jumping in his chest. The wakeup call had left him riled up, energised, and mildly afraid.

He cracked every knuckle in his body. He was antsy and wanted to do _something_ , but he was tethered to the spot. He couldn’t even dick around with his grenades and blow shit up for fun out of fear of waking Roadhog up. For some reason, he didn’t think Roadhog would react kindly to that. He _had_ blown some of his hard earned cash on quality supplies to build more explosives, but it was dark enough that he didn’t want to strain his eyes trying to tell red wires from black or deal with tiny, fiddly mechanical parts.

He drummed his fingers on the ground and scanned his surroundings. There was nothing even remotely interesting for him to look at, not even a funny looking bug to watch.

He _could_ think of one way to enjoy himself and pass the time. He glanced over at Roadhog, who had his back turned to him and was perfectly still.

Junkrat palmed the bulge in his shorts as he used his other hand to undo his belt buckle. He slipped his hand beneath the waistband of his shorts and rubbed his dick, peeking at Roadhog to make sure he hadn’t noticed. Seeing that he still hadn’t shifted, Junkrat relaxed a little and turned his attention back to his lap. He stroked himself, hard and fast, trying to get off as quickly as possible. He was doing a really poor job regulating his breathing, but other than that, he thought he was impressively quiet.

“If you’re going to jerk off, at least do it after I’m asleep.”

Junkrat froze at the sound of Roadhog’s deep, irritated voice. He pulled his hand out of his pants. “Sorry,” he muttered. He shifted, trying to will his body to calm down by focusing on unsightly things. He tried blood and carnage, but then he began fantasizing about a dead Crunch, and it didn't work.

He flopped onto his back and sighed loudly, making sure Roadhog knew how much he was inconveniencing him. He stared up at the stars twinkling above him. One or two of them were moving -- planes, he assumed -- and, through half-lidded eyes, he watched them slowly make their way across the night sky.

The next thing he was aware of was being roughly shoved awake. He startled, flailing upright. “What the--” He couldn’t see Roadhog’s face, but he could feel the displeasure radiating off of him.

“If you’re as big a target as you say you are, you can’t fall asleep on your watch.”

“Roight, okay, sorry!” He felt like he was spending half of his life apologizing now. Roadhog was difficult to work with. Although truth be told, Roadhog could say the same about him.

They stared each other down until they finally, wordlessly, agreed that they should just get up for the day. The sun was starting to rise over the desert horizon.

\---

If Junkrat was being perfectly honest, his new bodyguard made him nervous. He couldn't see his expression behind that mask of his, but he always had the impression that Roadhog looked at him the way someone would look at a bug. Inconsequential. Disgusting.

It was a little nerve wracking. Not to mention the fact that there was tension between the two of them whenever they got into scrapes that required them to get violent. Roadhog preferred to fight up close, dragging his targets into arm’s length and shooting them point-blank. Junkrat, on the other hand, wanted to keep his distance as much as possible. He played with fire, manipulating explosives, and could very easily get hurt by his own bombs if he was too close to them when they detonated. Getting separated in battle was a terrible idea, as it increased the chances of one of them getting caught, and Roadhog couldn’t exactly leave with Junkrat several feet away from him. Logically, they both knew they had to work together if they were going to be a cohesive team, but their differences were hard to reconcile.

Junkrat figured out a strategy by accident. He had been lightly dozing in the late summer sun when Roadhog unceremoniously jarred him awake at the first sign of an ambush. He didn't _think_ that they knew about his secret treasure -- he assumed that they were a typical band of outlaws who saw two men, one sleeping and one extremely overweight, and pinned them as easy targets. He imagined that they immediately regretted their decision when Roadhog stood up and they saw just how huge he really was, and even more so when he promptly hooked their leader and blew his head off.

Blood spurted out of the stump where his ugly mug had once been. Most people would have taken that as a sign to turn tail and get as far away as possible, but it only enraged the rest of them. Most denizens of the irradiated Outback were used to fighting tooth and nail over even the most minor of inconveniences.

Stumbling to his feet, still groggy with sleep, Junkrat groped for his weapon. Lobbing a grenade at one of the gang members, a grungy girl with a knife the size of his forearm, was exactly what he needed to wake up. It sent a thrill of adrenaline through him, the sight of an explosion always filling him with perverse glee. He ended up against Roadhog’s back, keeping half of the gang members at bay with his frag launcher while Roadhog pulled the others close and did what he did best. Junkrat laughed, loud and crazed -- this was the way to fight.

When they were surrounded by dead bodies (or people playing dead, if they were smart), Junkrat turned back to Roadhog and grinned. “I think we found what works for us, mate.” Being in the center of all the chaos was the way to go, fighting back to back and covering all angles using their individual, unique methods.

Roadhog was covered in blood, and Junkrat was deeply concerned when that stirred _something_ in the pit of his stomach. He guessed it was unavoidable. One of the Junkers he used to know had once told him that he always had a boner for mayhem. It was truer than he would have liked.

“I guess we did,” Roadhog replied, voice even. He splashed some water from his canteen onto a rag and wiped himself and his meat hook off.

Junkrat didn't avert his eyes, grinning. Somehow, he thought they’d hit their turning point. “What say we celebrate with a pint?”

Roadhog grunted and headed for his bike. Junkrat chased after him. “Is that a yes?” Another grunt. He assumed this did, in fact, mean yes.

They found a seedy pub in a small city. It was a shady joint where they didn’t look out of place, barring the fact that they were the only patrons without shirts. Still, even that didn’t cause anyone to bat an eye.

Roadhog ordered a whisky and pulled out his hydration tube from the pack strapped on his back. Over their week or so together, Junkrat had seen him drink water like this, but it never ceased to be surreal to him. He poured the whisky into his empty canteen, attached it to one end of the hydration tube, and connected the other end with one of the valves on his gas mask.

Junkrat opted for beer, chugging them and demanding that the bartender keep them coming. Around the fourth beer, he could tell he was getting significantly sloshed. His experience with alcohol was otherwise limited to homemade grog made out of fermented banksia and the rare beer, if one of the Junkers managed to score a slab and was feeling generous. The lack of exposure, coupled with the fact that he was malnourished and scrawny, made him a lightweight.

The alcohol loosened his tongue even more than usual. Roadhog still didn’t volunteer much information, but he wasn’t actively telling him to shut up, which he took as a good sign.

“You ever gonna tell me why ya wear that mask all the time?” Junkrat asked, taking another hearty swig of beer. “Is it just for the look, or are ya hidin’ somethin’?”

“Health reasons,” was all Roadhog said. He lifted the canteen and tilted his head back to sip his whisky.

Junkrat eyed him. “What, ya got bad lungs, then?” He guessed it made sense -- most Junkers he knew had some form of health issues after the nuclear detonation and subsequent radiation. He personally had issues with hair growth -- after being exposed to radiation since well before puberty, he barely grew any on his body, and the hair on his head was prone to falling out in chunks. Although part of that _may_ have been affected by the fact that his hair was on fire more often than not.

Plus, some of the other Junkers claimed that irradiation had given him a touch of madness. He preferred to think that it enhanced his god-given genius.

“Yes. Among other things.”

Junkrat waited for him to elaborate, wide-eyed and expectant, but he didn’t provide any more details. Junkrat decided to change the subject. “Thanks for taking care of the bastards what jumped us. Gotta say, I don’t understand why they’re all comin’ after me. I’m an decent, righteous person! Just happened to steal a secret that no one else was using, tha’s all. Don’t give them no reason to fight me.”

“You bragged about it. Of course they’re coming after you.”

“Yeah, but that ain’t _my_ fault! I bragged to _one_ bloke, I didn’t go around Junkertown like, ‘Oi, you lot! I’ve got a treasure, and you can’t have it!’” He raised his voice, and half the pub turned to look at him. Roadhog pinched the forehead of his mask, certain that some of the bar goers would take this as an invitation.

“I just want to keep me secret treasure and blow the _figs_ off everythin’. Is that such a crime?” He gesticulated wildly, flinging his arm wide and smacking the unfortunate person who was sitting next to his barstool.

“Yes. That is the definition of a crime.”

Sufficiently intoxicated, Junkrat thought this was the funniest thing he had ever heard in his life. He laughed loudly, slapping the bar, and was promptly shushed by the man next to him, who had clearly reached his breaking point. “Oi!” He swiveled around on his stool, very nearly falling off the chair, to confront the shusher. “Fuckin’ rude! You wanna have a go at me?” He spread his arms wide, inviting the man to punch him.

He did. Roadhog was quicker, though, and the man’s swing was intercepted by a large hand. Roadhog twisted his arm, causing him to cry out in pain. “I suggest you leave,” he said, the threatening tone in his voice implying that this was not just a mere suggestion.

“Alright! Alright! I’ll go!” The man’s eyes were watering, and he gasped when Roadhog released him. He rubbed his aching arm and withdrew a handful of coins from his pocket, throwing them down on the counter to pay for his tab. “Fuckin’ cunts,” he muttered under his breath as he slunk away from the bar.

Junkrat looked up at Roadhog, sloshed and starry-eyed. “This,” he pronounced, “was a good idea. Whose idea was this, anyway? Mine? Good on me!”

“Stop provoking people,” Roadhog told him. “You’re making my job harder.”

“Ah, gotta earn your pay!” Junkrat rested his head on the counter of the bar, nursing what should probably be his last beer. He stared at Roadhog’s hand wrapped around his canteen of grog. He’d noticed his black nails before but had never really questioned it. This was the first time he’d been close enough to get a really good look at them. They weren’t black and grimy from dirt and unwashed hands, but the solid, matte black of paint. “Whazzat?” he asked.

Roadhog looked down to see what Junkrat’s gaze was fixed on. “Nail polish,” he answered, all matter of fact. Junkrat was not familiar with the concept; he knew exactly one person in Junkertown who wore nail polish, a cutthroat girl with blood red nails that contained viper venom. Roadhog didn’t seem the slightest bit embarrassed by the admission.

“I want it,” Junkrat said, words slurring together. “Paint me nails.”

Roadhog sighed, tipped his head back, and drained the last of the whisky from his canteen. He removed the hydration tube. “Paint them yourself.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a fistful of cash, and handed it to the bartender.

Junkrat protested as Roadhog plucked his half-full beer glass out of his hand. It was for the best, however, as he promptly stumbled the moment he climbed off his barstool. He automatically clutched onto his bodyguard’s arm for support. Roadhog tensed underneath his grip, as if he was forcibly restraining himself from jerking away and letting Junkrat fall flat on his face.

He managed to contain himself until they were out of the pub. Then he pulled his arm away and sent Junkrat sprawling on the sidewalk.

“Oi, watch it!” Junkrat complained, crawling on his hands and knees to rest against the side of the pub.

“Get up.”

“Don't wanna walk. Wanna sit roight here.” He patted the concrete.

He expected Roadhog to forcibly haul him up to his feet. Maybe the whisky had made him more charitable, however, because all he did was sit down next to him with his back against the wall.

Roadhog reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of nail polish. Junkrat gave a small, drunken gasp of glee and watched raptly as Roadhog touched up his nails. The action was surprisingly dainty for such a large, imposing man.

Roadhog handed him the bottle and its tiny brush. Junkrat spent a long time painstakingly painting his own nails, tongue poking out of his mouth as he concentrated on the infinitely more difficult right fingers.

“Look, look, whaddya think?” He held up his hands, displaying black nails that bled onto the surrounding skin, the lines wobbly and uneven.

“Amateur.”

“I like it,” Junkrat announced, holding his hands out to assess them himself.

“You’re the only one who does.”


	5. Chapter 5

It took a few weeks, but they started to not grate on each other’s nerves quite so much and settled into a routine. They would hit up whatever locales struck their fancy, leaving chaos and destruction in their wake before laying low for a few days to shake off whoever was on their tail.

After a particularly wild police chase, Junkrat had to voice something that was on his mind. There had been a split second of sheer terror where he had been afraid he was going to fall off the back of the bike, Roadhog having taken off before he could properly grip onto him. “Say, Roadhog…” he began, testing the waters. “Whaddya think about maybe gettin’ a sidecar for that bike of yours? I mean, let’s face it, yer big enough that there’s not much room for me.”

Roadhog turned his head and fixed him with a look. As always, the mask obscured his facial expression, but Junkrat had the _distinct_ impression that he was displeased.

“No-- no offense!” he rushed to say. “I like ‘em big! Just think you’d maybe be a bit more comfortable without cramming me on that chopper of yours too, y’know?”

Roadhog grunted. Junkrat was starting to be able to decipher his noises, familiar enough with them to tell whether it was a grunt of assent or dissent. In this case, it was the former. Encouraged, he continued, “It don’t have to be a real nice one either! S’long as it got wheels, that all ya really need in a sidecar, roight?”

Roadhog stared at him -- at least, Junkrat thought he did, as his gas mask was turned in his general direction. “Fine,” he finally said.

Junkrat grinned. “Yeah?”

“I know a place.”

Junkrat got on the back of the bike for the last time, gripping the back of Roadhog’s harness. He wouldn’t miss how uncomfortable it was, but he had to admit that there had been something exciting about it all.

Roadhog drove them to a proper bike shop, one where his chopper didn’t look out of place next to the line of motorcycles in the parking lot.

“How we gonna raid the place?” Junkrat hopped off the back seat and rubbed his hands together.

“We're not.”

“Eh?” He trotted after Roadhog, who was opening the door to the bike shop. He wasn't entirely sure this was a good idea -- they were wanted criminals, after all. Hanging out in a sleazy pub was one thing, but this was a respectable place of business.

He shouldn't have worried. The man behind the counter seemed to recognise him, and not just in an “I've seen your masked face plastered all over the news” kind of way.

“Roadhog. Here for a tune-up, or did ya bust something again?”

“Neither. I have a permanent passenger--” and oh, he liked that word, permanent. He'd never had anything permanent in his life before “--and need to expand.”

“Mate, expanding is the _last_ thing you need to do.” Junkrat regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. Roadhog grabbed him by the throat and pinned him against the wall. The salesman casually looked away, wiping down some bike part or other.

“Don't make me regret this,” Roadhog growled. “This 'permanent’ thing can change.”

Junkrat nodded wildly. “Yeah, yeah, 'course, sorry, sorry -- I'll watch me tongue, I swear it!”

“Be sure you do.” Roadhog released him and turned back to the counter, resuming his conversation with the man as though nothing had happened. Junkrat massaged his throat. Maybe he had been naive to assume that they were friends after a few successful weeks together. “What’ve you got for sidecars?”

The man behind the counter led them to a section of the shop with rows upon rows of sidecars upon display. There were plenty of shiny new ones, but Junkrat was immediately attracted to one of the older models. It was yellow, dingy, a little beat up, just like him, with mismatched headlights and a metal plate hammered onto the front of it. “Oh, this one, I like this one! Can we get this one, Roadhog?”

Roadhog looked it over. “As long as it’s not going to come off, I don’t care.”

“Not at all,” the salesman smoothly interjected. “It’s a good rig, the damage is merely cosmetic.”

Roadhog seemed to trust the man, because he simply said, “We’ll take it.”

While he was paying in cash, Junkrat studied the numerous customization options. He scooped up a handful of spray paint bottles and dumped them in the sidecar. “Come on, it’s my sidecar, I wanna make it look the way I want,” he said when Roadhog tipped his head at him.

“No, it’s not. It’s my bike.”

“I’m the one who’s riding in it!”

“I’m the one who’s paying,” Roadhog countered.

He had a point, the money was coming out of Roadhog’s share. “I’ll pay ya back! I’m good for it. I just want to make this a roight beaut.” He giggled and banged on the hood of the sidecar.

“Fine,” Roadhog begrudgingly agreed. “Add it to the total,” he told the salesman.

Junkrat was excited for the impromptu art project, his fingers itching to get his hands on the sidecar. He was antsy while Roadhog attached it to the chopper so that they could drive it somewhere more isolated to customise it, but he calmed down slightly when they hit the road.

“That’s more like it,” Junkrat said, slinging his arms over the sides of the car and kicking his feet up onto the hood. It was infinitely more comfortable than being squished on the back of the motorcycle, _and_ it would give them more storage space to keep whatever loot they pilfered.

They unscrewed the sidecar and dragged it a short distance away from the bike so as not to contaminate it in the process. Junkrat immediately shook a can of red paint, but Roadhog stopped him before he could spray a single line, snatching the paint out of his hand.

“What, exactly, are you planning on doing to this?”

Junkrat lifted his knee and pointed at the large smiley face patch on the thigh of his shorts. “Makin’ it look like this!”

“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Hey!” Junkrat frowned. “Your bike has your stupid interests on it, why can’t my half have _my_ stupid interests on it?” He pointed at the bull horns by the handle bars and the twee pig’s face ornament.

“Pigs are dignified and adorable creatures--”

“--I cannot believe you just used that word--”

“--Smiley faces are childish.”

Junkrat violently waved his hands at the pig ornament, as if to say, _Look at how childish this thing is!_ “Childi-- actual children own your pig merchandise!”

They stared at each other, having reached a stalemate, with neither of them wanting to be the first to look away.

“Fine.” Roadhog tossed the paint can back to Junkrat, who fumbled to catch it. “Do what you want.”

Junkrat laughed, thoroughly satisfied that he managed to get his way. He slashed a red X over the larger headlight, then reached for the white and black paint cans. “Smile!” He stretched a large grin over the front of the sidecar, the metal plate that was bolted there serving as a missing tooth. Roadhog watched, arms folded over his chest, as he painted twin smiley faces on each of the bumpers and pronounced it complete. “Ain’t that the most beautiful thing you ever did see?”

Roadhog grumbled in dissent. Junkrat scratched his head, giving it a once-over. “Y’know what it needs, though?”

“A new paint job?”

“Spikes. Giant, fuck off spikes. Roight on the wheel bumpers.”

 _That_ piqued Roadhog’s interest. Junkrat had gathered that he was a fan of deathly sharp objects, judging by the spikes on his tire shoulder pad, fingerless gloves, and left boot. “Yes.”

Junkrat beamed at him. “Great! I got just the place. Few clicks from Junkertown, I don’t know _what_ it used to be before the omnium went all explodey, but it’s a gold mine for weapons. And we can take our new baby for a spin.” He patted the sidecar affectionately. The paint was already beginning to dry, baking in the heat of the desert sun.

Returning even marginally close to his former base of operations made him nervous, but he took solace in the fact that it was roughly between five and seven kilometers from the hub of Junkertown. It helped that once they got to the junkyard, he saw that despite being raided by Junkers over the years, it was still a veritable treasure trove for weaponry. “What’d I tell ya?” he told Roadhog as he climbed out of the sidecar. “Just the place to get some spikes.”

The area was barren, the ground hard and cracked and littered with twisted metal. Junkrat scampered around, picking up thick metal spikes and tucking them under his arm, while Roadhog examined the debris.

When Junkrat looked up, he found that he had wandered a good distance from Roadhog and the bike. And he wasn’t alone. A band of Junkers was approaching, their leader shielding his eyes and squinting in his direction, clearly trying to figure out whether he was friend or foe.

“Oh no,” Junkrat mumbled when they got close enough for him to get a better look at their faces. Crunch and his gang -- he wasn’t familiar with a handful of them (he always had been bad at remembering faces and names), but he _definitely_ recognised the one who had broken his peg leg that day he uncovered the secret in the bones of the omnium. He could have gone without seeing Crunch again, but there was a part of him that was glad to see his lackey -- maybe he would break _his_ leg in return.

He made eye contact with Crunch. There was a flash of recognition in his eyes, and then Crunch set off towards him at a dead run.

“It’s him!” Crunch barked at the rest of his gang. “It’s the fuckin’ rat I told you about!”

It was as if time slowed down while Junkrat cycled through his options. He could run, but the bike wasn’t particularly close by and the sharp metal on the ground was a minefield -- he had visions of tripping over something and sprawling on the ground, and then Crunch would be on top of him, and he would be dead meat. He could try to reason with Crunch, but he didn’t think the gang would listen to reason. They knew he had something valuable, and they _were_ going to get it if it was the last thing they did. Or he could stand his ground and fight.

He opted for the latter. “Roadhog!” he shouted, dropping half of the spikes he was carrying as he fumbled for a weapon. It was with a sinking heart that he realised that he had left his frag launcher and cornucopia of explosives in the sidecar, wanting to keep his hands free for gathering supplies. “Shit,” he swore. He gripped the biggest spike he had found and brandished it like a knife.

Crunch was on him like a jackal on a piece of meat, sending him crashing to the ground and knocking the spike out of his hand before he had a chance to use it. "You again? Piss off!" Junkrat spat, writhing beneath him. A piece of metal was jabbing him in the back while Crunch drove his elbow into his chest, and he had never been more uncomfortable. He tried to reach for the fallen spike, but it was _just_ out of reach, and the tips of his fingers scrabbled uselessly against it.

"Where is it?" Crunch shouted.

"Where's what?” Junkrat replied, his voice equally loud in return. “Haven't got the faintest idea what yer talkin' about!" Feigning ignorance probably wasn't the smartest decision on his part, because all it did was further enrage Crunch.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Crunch snarled. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Rat -- where’s your shitty treasure?”

Junkrat was deeply offended; his treasure was _not_ shitty, it was a precious gem. "Well, if ya think it's so shitty, why the hell do ya want it so bad?” He struggled to break free. “Fuckin'-- just get offa me, ya useless cunt!" He shoved Crunch, but the man had a good hundred pounds on him, and it was futile.

Crunch laughed, spiteful and bitter. "Because you don't deserve it, whatever it is! Wheels told me all about it, you bragging to him like a jackass, and if it's as valuable as you claim it is, then I should get a cut of it!"

The logic made no sense to him, and Junkrat spluttered, "Why the hell should you get anythin'? It's mine, I found it!"

“Because you tried to leave me and my boys to die in that stupid cellar!”

Well. Junkrat couldn't argue that point. "Look, we can be sensible about this,” he reasoned, “reach some kinda accord..."

Crunch pressed down on his windpipe with his forearm, cutting off any and all further attempts at bargaining. "Here's your accord. Just tell me what it is and where it is, and me and my boys won't kill you. How's that for a deal?"

Junkrat heard a whoosh of air, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Roadhog's chain sail past them.There was a sickening squelch and a strangled cry as the hook presumably lodged in the chest of one of Crunch's buddies. Roadhog yanked on the chain with a grunt, and his victim flew past Junkrat.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Crunch eased up on Junkrat as he yelled at Roadhog, who was picking off his gang members one by one.

Junkrat seized the opportunity to stretch his arm out and lunge for the spike. His fingers closed around slick metal, and before Crunch could refocus on him, he jammed it between his ribs. “Yeah, no deal, mate.” He yanked the spike out, and blood spurted from his side.

Crunch tried to scream, but all that came out was a gurgle. He clawed at the wound, bright red pouring through his fingers and soaking the parched earth. “You fucking... rat,” he managed, clutching at his side as he keeled over. Junkrat threw him off and crawled to his feet, leaving him curled in a ball on the ground, chest heaving with shallow, gasping breaths. With any luck, he’d bleed out quickly.

“Crunch!” Junkrat whipped his head up to see Crunch’s lackey, one of the last surviving members of the gang. He was horrorstruck as he reached out to his dying leader. He fixated his gaze on Junkrat, who was mildly alarmed by the sheer rage in his eyes. “I’m gonna _kill_ you, you piece a shit!”

He rushed at Junkrat but was promptly stopped in his tracks by Roadhog, who grabbed the back of the bandanna tied around his neck and hoisted him off the ground.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be joining him soon,” Roadhog said. He lifted his scrap gun and shot him in the stomach, swiftly and without ceremony. He dumped the body on top of Crunch’s and holstered his gun.

“Took ya long enough,” Junkrat said to Roadhog. He wiped the bloody spike off on Crunch’s muscle shirt. “Bastard coulda killed me in the time it took ya to get here.”

“Next time, don’t wander so far.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Junkrat kicked Crunch’s corpse. “Good riddance, I say. He had it comin’. Shoulda broken his mate’s leg, but the stomach thing works too. Can’t be too picky now, can I?” He picked up the rest of the spikes he had dropped and brandished them over his head. “Now come on, we got some spikes to hammer on!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is honestly one of my favorite chapters, so I hope that you guys like it as well!

On nights when they were camping in the desert without a guaranteed source to drink from, Junkrat and Roadhog would stop at an unobtrusive pit stop to pick up some bottles of water. It wasn’t worth sticking up the entire store for a few plastic bottles, so they paid for them -- “Like honest, upstanding citizens!” Junkrat said

While Roadhog was raiding the coolers, Junkrat picked up one of the newspapers and opened it. The headline “ _Roadhog Rampage_ ” immediately caught his attention, accompanied by photos that must have been lifted from security camera footage. He was in one of the shots, listed as Roadhog’s accomplice, alias: Junkrat. “Look, ‘Hog, I’m in the paper!” he exclaimed, pointing at the grainy photo. “They got it all backwards, though. If anything, yer my accomplice. I’m the one who hired you.”

Roadhog snatched the paper from him. “Do you _want_ to get caught?” He glanced at the cashier behind the counter, a bored, pimply teenager who was too busy messing around on his phone to pay attention to the two scary guys in his store. He didn’t look like the type who bothered reading newspapers. Roadhog straightened the crumpled paper out and read the article for himself.

“They did get it wrong. That means I’m doing all the heavy lifting. You’re not doing your part.”

“Is that a fuckin’ challenge?” Junkrat demanded.

“If it gets you to pull your weight more, yes.”

Junkrat drew himself to his full height and puffed out his chest. “Challenge accepted. I mean, it’ll be easier for me to pull me weight than for you to pull yers, eh?” He elbowed Roadhog in the side. Roadhog brushed him away as if he was a mere fly and turned the page of the newspaper.

They scanned the crime blotter, both for inspiration and to see what their fellow outlaws were up to.

“Hang on,” Roadhog said suddenly. “I know that guy.” He pointed at one of the names.

“Your fat finger’s coverin’ it, move it,” Junkrat said. He didn’t recognise the name, and he said as much.

“He’s an old friend from the Australian Liberation Front,” Roadhog said. The term “old friend” sounded menacing coming from him. “He owes me. I thought he was dead.”

“Well, let’s find out where he is and pay him a visit!” Junkrat said. “Make him pay.” He pounded his fist in his open palm for emphasis.

“Best idea you’ve had since we met.” Roadhog tossed the newspaper back down on the pile and went to pay for their drinks. Junkrat loitered by the fruit stand, peeling bananas to give his hands something to do.

When Roadhog returned, plastic bag in hand, he abandoned the half-peeled bananas. As they headed for the door, he said, “When we make the front page, you’ll know we’ve really hit the big time. Let’s strive for that, yeah?”

“Deal.”

Finding their new target, a man whom Roadhog referred to only as “Riptide,” wasn’t as hard as Junkrat had thought it would be. He’d made the blotter for aggravated driving while under the influence, so they hit up every bottle shop within city limits until they found someone who recognised the name as a regular. All it took was some mild threats of bodily harm to loosen his tongue.

“He moved!” the man behind the counter cried, hands up in the air. Roadhog’s rusty hook was just a few inches away from his eyes, beads of sweat trickling down the side of his forehead. “He only comes in for the liquor now, said he’s out in the middle of Woop Woop, on the desert outskirts out east -- that’s all I know, I swear!”

Junkrat hummed and lowered his frag launcher. “Don’t seem to be lyin’,” he observed.

“I’m not! I’m not -- please don’t blow my head off.”

“Well, since ya asked so nicely...”

Roadhog lowered the hook. “Thanks for the information.”

“Got anythin’ else to make it worth our while?” Junkrat piped in.

The man nodded frantically. “Yeah, yeah, take anything you like!”

“Don’t mind if I do!” Junkrat pilfered a few bottles of spirits for the road.

“Move it,” Roadhog told him. Junkrat gave a jaunty wave to the sweating man behind the counter and followed him, the glass bottles in his arms clinking with every uneven step of his peg leg.

\---

Junkrat took a swig of vodka and made a face, shaking his head at the acrid taste. He offered the bottle to Roadhog, who shook his head. “I’m not Riptide. I’m not driving under the influence.”

“Eh, good point,” Junkrat conceded, tucking the bottle next to him.

“The chopper’s too precious to risk destroying.”

Junkrat gave a snort of laughter. “Glad to know ya got yer priorities straight, mate. Y’care more about the fate of yer bike than ya do about me life.”

“Yes,” Roadhog answered bluntly.

Junkrat shrugged. He was used to this by now. “I feel like burnin’ somethin’,” he said from his perch on the sidecar. He toyed with one of his grenades, throwing it up in the air and catching it.

“That thing’s going to explode and you’re going to lose an arm,” Roadhog said, barely sparing him a glance as he shifted gears. “Just like your leg.”

“I beg your pardon!” Junkrat said, affronted at the very insinuation. “I lost me leg in a mine accident, it had bugger all to do with the grenades.” It still didn’t stop him from using his mines as a springboard, but that was because he knew better now. He had a more heavy-duty boot and knew _just_ where to stand, _just_ when to detonate it so the force of the blast propelled him through the air without causing loss of life or limb. It had been a learning experience. Plus, he was convinced that all the radiation exposure had made him more resilient. He had zero idea whether there was any scientific truth behind it or if it was just a delusion on his part. He wasn’t well-versed in areas of science that didn’t have to do with building mechanical devices or making things explode. “Besides, it wouldn’t be enough to blow me arm off, either. Just make me nicely toasted. I know what I’m talkin’ about here, ‘Hog.”

Still, he listened to Roadhog and put the grenade back in its canister. He went back to his original train of thought. “But seriously, mate, don’t ya ever get that urge? To just -- set somethin’ on fire, watch it burn, all fire and mayhem. Beautiful.”

“No.”

“Ah well. To each their own.” Junkrat propped his chin on his hands and watched the view blur by. They were in farm country now, just passing through on their way back to the desert of the Outback to Roadhog’s old “friend’s” house. All he could see was pasture and rows upon rows of crops -- hay? Corn? He had no idea. It all looked the same to him. “Can I burn these? Bet they’d go up with a ‘ _whoosh!_ ’”

“No.”

Junkrat heaved a massive sigh. “Yer killin’ me, Roadhog. Can’t a bloke have some _fun_? One little fire, that’s all!”

“You can burn something later,” Roadhog replied.

Well, that was as good as he was going to get for now. Junkrat picked at a hole in his shorts. He’d have to ask Roadhog if he could pilfer one of his patches to stitch it up.

He looked up when Roadog veered off the road, pulling up next to the tall stalks of whatever the unidentifiable crop was.

“Why we stoppin’?” Junkrat looked around them, taking in their surroundings. There was nothing fancy about it; it was a simple farm, acres of fields, a barn, a scarecrow -- he didn’t see any reason for Roadhog to pull over. “Don’t look like nothin’ worth stealin’ here.”

Roadhog grunted but didn’t answer. He simply parked the chopper and headed in the direction of the barn. His curiosity piqued, Junkrat chased after him. Maybe Roadhog had changed his mind and was letting him set something on fire after all.

He could hear the barn’s occupants before he saw them, the quiet oinking of pigs and the low mooing of cows, and all at once he understood the reason for the detour. He grinned, wide and sharklike. “What, you wanted to be with yer family?”

“Shut up.” Roadhog bent down to look at the pigs in their pen. “Here, little piggy.” One of them, the clear runt of the litter, trotted up to him. It squealed, butting its snout against Roadhog’s outstretched finger.

Junkrat had watched Roadhog crush the skulls of his enemies, seen him disembowel cops, observed as he blew off the head of a Junker who tried to ambush them. He'd never seen him treat a living thing with such compassion. It was a weird sort of disconnect, recognizing the man who was gently tickling the belly of the piglet as the same remorseless killer he'd come to know.

“Ya really like that thing, dontcha?”

“He's cute,” Roadhog simply answered. The word sounded absolutely bizarre coming out of his mouth, but he clearly wasn't embarrassed about using the term. “I’m taking him.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Roadhog picked up the pig, cradling it tenderly in the crook of his arm. “Come on. It must be close to 5 AM by now. I don't intend on being here when the farmers show up.”

Junkrat had so many questions. They were all temporarily put on hold when Roadhog handed him the pig, which was heavier than anticipated. And bigger, for that matter: it looked a lot smaller when Roadhog was the one carrying it. It snuffled his singed hair.

“You have to hold onto him in the sidecar.”

He felt the weight of responsibility sink on his shoulders. He had no clue what was happening right now, but he hefted their new friend and staggered back to the motorcycle. The pig squealed as they took off once more.

“What the _hell_ was that?” Junkrat asked once they were back on the road, raising his voice to be heard over the rush of wind. “Did we just steal a fuckin’ pig?”

“Later.” Roadhog wasn’t a fan of talking when on the chopper, preferring to focus on the wide open road ahead of him, and Junkrat was demanding too many answers to address at once.

Junkrat made a noise of frustration and tossed his head back, staring up at the cloudless sky.

When they made a pit stop to drink some water and take a leak, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut anymore. “Okay, seriously, mate, ya gotta give me some answers here.” He pulled the RIP-tire off and set it on the ground so that he could crack his back.

Roadhog shrugged. “Call it an impulse. Saw the barn, got nostalgic, wanted to see what animals were in it. And Piglet was too pretty to leave behind and be slaughtered.”

“Piglet? That’s what we’re callin’ it’? Creative. Bacon is such a better name. Or Pork Pie, that'd be a good one. Porky for short.”

“Him, not it. And we're not naming a pig after food. He is not food.”

Junkrat rolled with it. “Alright, him. Whaddya mean, nostalgic?” He narrowed his eyes. “And that’s another thing, how did ya know when the farmers were gonna show up?”

Roadhog sighed, picking up the pig and holding it in his lap. “What do you want me to say? I used to own a farm.”

Junkrat laughed, incredulous. At the same time, he felt honored that his bodyguard was finally sharing some personal details about himself. “A farm? What the hell kind of farm can ya have in Junkertown?”

Roadhog looked at him, and Junkrat had the sudden impression that if he could see his face, it would be a pitying expression. “I wasn’t always a Junker. I owned land before the omnics displaced me.”

“Oh.” Roadhog was older than he had assumed, Junkrat realised. He had been six when the omnium was destroyed, just a kid, while Roadhog had been a land-owner. He wasn’t particularly weirded out by the age difference -- they had met as grown-ass adults, it wasn’t like he was a kid next to Roadhog -- but it was odd to think that there had been a time when they weren’t in the same stage of life. “So what, ya raised pigs?”

Roadhog nodded, watching as Piglet rested his chin on his forearm. His voice was far away, lost in thought. “They took my pigs. My cows. My field.”

Junkrat, who had been marvelling with glee over the thought of his bodyguard as a gentle farmer, recognised the serious turn. His own expression turned dark. “Yeah. They took my oldies.” His parents had been anarchists, killed in an uprising against the omnics that left him orphaned at a young age. Their hatred for omnics had tainted his own worldview when he was small, and it had been solidified when Junkertown rose from the ashes of the destroyed omnium and he saw how many other people’s lives had been torn apart as a result of the omnics. “Don’t remember much about ‘em, but I reckon they was good people. So yeah, fuck those scrap-headed bastards. Gonna blow ‘em all up one day.” He ran his finger around the rim of his tire, thinking about the treasure it contained.

Roadhog snorted. Piglet imitated the sound. “Tried that once already. Didn't work. Made things worse, actually.”

“Wait, what?” Junkrat was learning all kinds of new things today. He scooted closer to Roadhog. “You tried blowing up a bunch of omnics?”

“I was in the Australian Liberation Front.”

Junkrat stared at him for a split second before snickering. “Good on you, mate!” Sure, the Australian Liberation Front had irradiated the entire center of Australia and turned the Outback into a wasteland, but causing the omnium’s nuclear explosion was _worth_ it. “Yer an inspiration to us all.”

Piglet leapt out of Roadhog’s arms with an oink. Junkrat watched as the pig burrowed its snout into the dirt. “Well, I guess we can add kidnapping to our laundry list of crimes. Pignapping. He can be our mascot.”

“Hmm.” Roadhog pulled out some fruit he had saved from the previous night’s dinner and fed it to the pig.

Junkrat had no strong feelings one way or another in regards to farm animals, other than the fact that they tasted good, and he definitely didn’t find pigs as charming as Roadhog did, but even he had to admit that it was pretty cute to watch Piglet scarf down the fruit. He drained the rest of his canteen and refilled it from the watering hole.

“Let’s go,” Roadhog said, hefting his bulk up off the ground.

It took them a while to find Riptide’s house, and they accidentally burst in on a family sitting around the dinner table.

Junkrat shoved Roadhog in his haste to get out the door. “Go go go, before they call the pigs! And not the kind you like, either.”

He giggled breathlessly as they tore away from the family’s home. “Well, that could have ended badly.” Piglet squealed in agreement, nudging at one of the canisters on his harness with his snout.

“This is the one,” Roadhog said, some thirty minutes later.

“Y’sure?” Junkrat asked. “Or are we gonna be ruinin’ some poor sods’ tea again?”

Roadhog eyed him askance. “It’s his.” He nodded at a motorcycle next to the sorry little shack, the letters RIPTD on the license plate.

“Did all of you Australian Liberation Front blokes have motorcycles?” Junkrat asked. “Was that like a thing?”

“No.” Roadhog parked the bike and pulled out the sawed off shotgun he kept strapped to his back. “I’m going in. Watch Piglet, and stay out of trouble.”

Junkrat saluted him. “I’ll be on me best behavior.”

Roadhog banged on the door, and when there was no answer, he shouldered it in.

Junkrat drummed his fingers on the side of the sidecar, eyeing the pig. He wondered how he’d look covered in paint. Maybe he’d just paint a little smiley face on his back, make him resemble their souped-up sidecar, or give him a painted black eye. If he was going to tag along with them, he might as well look the part.

He was in the process of shaking the can of paint when he heard noises from inside. They were not good noises, and he was suddenly concerned that Roadhog had bitten off more than he could chew. Hoisting the pig out of the sidecar, he loped over to the door of the shack as quickly as he could.

He shouldn’t have worried. The sounds of distress were coming from Riptide, a man who was nearly a foot shorter than Junkrat but deeply intimidating, all muscles and bulk and facial piercings. For all of his appearances, he wasn’t as tough as he looked when he was backed against the wall, the barrel of Roadhog’s shotgun digging into his chest.

“This is extortion!” Riptide cried.

“Is it?” Roadhog asked, the voice that wheezed through his gas mask cool and aloof. “Or is it just a suggestion?” He looked over at Junkrat, standing in the doorway with the pig in his arms. “I told you to wait outside. Did you really have to bring Piglet?”

“Hey, I was worried about you, ya big lug! And yeah, what was I gonna do, let the piggy run off? You’d kill me.”

“I would,” Roadhog agreed. “Take him back outside. I don’t want him to see this.”

Junkrat rolled his eyes. “He’s a pig, ‘Hog! Ain’t gonna scar him for life to see ya make a guy’s head go kablooey.”

“Junkrat,” Roadhog warned, in that tone that meant he was deathly serious.

“I’m goin’!” He carried Piglet back outside, set him down on the ground, and squatted to his level. He could just make out the voices carrying from inside the shack.

“So, you’re… raising a pig with that guy? I wouldn’t have thought _you_ of all people would go sof-- hrrk!” Riptide's sneering remark was cut off short, most likely due to Roadhog.

“I repeat: Give me what you owe me, or I _will_ blow your head off, leave your body here for your wife to find, and my associate will burn your house down.”

Junkrat stifled a giggle. “That’s me!” he whispered to Piglet, who oinked back at him. After all of Roadhog’s reluctance towards partnering with him, he was thrilled that Roadhog was finally viewing him as half of a team. Still crouching on his haunches, he inched closer to the door.

“Alright!” Riptide’s voice cracked slightly. “Alright!” There was some scuffling from inside the building and the sound of a safe swinging open. “There, that’s everything, I swear!”

“The rest of the rings?”

“I, uh, may have pawned them--”

Junkrat fell flat on his ass, startled off balance as the house shook from the force of Roadhog slamming Riptide up against the wall.

“I oughta kill you right now,” Roadhog growled.

“But you won’t, right?” Riptide’s response was strangled; Junkrat could envision Roadhog’s fist around his throat, pinning him to the wall. _I’ve been there, pal,_ he thought to himself. It was a lovely mental image -- the whole thing was a lot more appealing when you weren’t the one on the other side of Roadhog’s hand.

There was a long silence, filled only by the sound of labored breathing. “No,” Roadhog said shortly, followed by a thump and a gasp as he dropped Riptide to the floor. “Don’t _ever_ even _think_ about stealing from me again.”

Junkrat climbed to his feet before Roadhog could come outside and catch him on the ground. “Got what ya came for?” he asked.

“Not all of it,” Roadhog replied, flicking through the bundle of money. In his other hand was a small pile of rings, similar in size and shape to the one he always wore on his right thumb. “You wanted to burn something? Burn his house down.”

“Ya mean it?” Junkrat asked, giddy with delight.

“Do it.” Roadhog pocketed his reclaimed goods, picked up Piglet, and walked back to the motorcycle.

Junkrat giggled and struck one of the matches he kept in the small bag around his waist, almost dropping it in his excitement.

The sight of the house burning, flames licking the sky, was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in months.

\---

Taking care of a pig required additional supplies, and they ended up at a large discount retailer. They were easily the most conspicuous people in the place, and Junkrat was vaguely aware of the few people who surreptitiously pointed them out to employees, none of whom actually did anything to force them out or report them to the authorities.

Junkrat was learning a lot about his new friend. The juxtaposition between the cold man who had, mere hours ago, extorted someone and then told Junkrat to burn his house down, and the man shopping for pet pig supplies was baffling.

Junkrat agreed to the blankets, with the caveat that they be allowed to use them too (Roadhog agreed, but noted that they were primarily for the pig). He even agreed to the large pink, piggy-faced duffel bag that simultaneously served as a carrier for Piglet and a place for them to carry the considerable amount of cash they had accumulated. But he lost it at the baby oil.

“He’s a bloody _pig_ , Roadhog -- baby oil? Come on!“

“His skin will flake otherwise. The baby oil stays.”

Junkrat threw his hands up in the air. “And there’s no arguin’ with you on that point?”

“No.”

“Roight then, I’m out.” Junkrat attempted to use the shopping trolley like a skateboard, pushing off with his one good foot and riding on the back of it. When the trolley nearly toppled over, Roadhog forcibly removed it from him. Junkrat settled for riding inside it instead, Piglet in his arms.

The cashier who had the misfortune of serving them looked utterly flabbergasted when they trundled up to the register.

“Is that a…”

“Pig? Yes.”

Junkrat and Roadhog stared at the cashier, who was sweating bullets.

“...That’ll be 101.25.”

Junkrat sucked in a deep breath of air. “That is outrageous, sir! How dare you.”

“Highway robbery,” Roadhog agreed.

“Absolute madman.“

“I-- I’m sorry,” the hapless cashier said. “I don’t… set the prices…”

Roadhog pulled out two crisp green $100 notes, not possessing any smaller denominations. He watched the cashier with a critical eye as he counted out $98.75 of change.

“Still a load of bullshit,“ Junkrat said. “Come on, Roadhog, let’s go take our considerable amount of money elsewhere.“ He pointed to the door, and Roadhog wheeled him out of the store. Behind them, he could hear the sound of the cashier whispering into a phone, and he was 95% certain that the cops were being called.

It was worth it, just to hear Roadhog's snort of appreciation when Junkrat wrapped Piglet in the fleece blanket, held him up in the air, and exclaimed, “Pigs in a blanket! Anyone up for sausage?”

It was the closest thing to a laugh he had ever heard from Roadhog. He was still grinning about it when he fell asleep that night, Piglet sandwiched between him and Roadhog, who watched over the both of them as they slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Pigs are friends, not food." -- Roadhog, probably


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for off-screen animal death in this chapter, if that's something you're sensitive to! If it helps, you'll know when to skim past it.

Junkrat was, in a word, bored shitless. They were laying low for a while, squatting in an abandoned shack to hide from law enforcement after their recent, post-pig-supply-shopping crime spree. He was entertaining himself by ricocheting grenades off the wall of the building, sending them bouncing behind him, where they exploded.

“Stop that,” Roadhog said as he fed Piglet a handful of nuts. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Junkrat snickered. “Yeah, yeah, roight, _I’m_ gonna hurt myself. Me, the demolition genius.” He continued chucking grenades at the wall.

He got lazy with his aim, however, and one of the grenades bounced off the wall and whizzed towards him, hitting him square in the crotch. Irony was a bitch and a half. Junkrat swore, dropping the grenade launcher and clutching himself. “...Least it didn’t--” The errant grenade exploded, singeing his feet and sending him stumbling back until he fell down, hard and ungraceful.

A sound unlike anything he'd heard from Roadhog before came wheezing out of his gas mask. It took Junkrat a minute to realise what it was: a proper _laugh_ , not a simple snort of amusement. "Did I just make ya laugh?" he asked with the utmost delight, thoroughly pleased in spite of the pain. Apparently schadenfreude was what Roadhog found most amusing. "I made ya laugh! Whaddya know, the big guy's got some humanity left in him after all!" He poked Roadhog's stomach and was promptly slapped, the blow sending him staggering. He really needed to start remembering that Roadhog had told him not to poke his stomach like that.

After that, he made it his mission to coax more laughs out of Roadhog. It delighted him to hear that rare deep, rumbly chuckle, and he'd goof around with steel trap puppets and vaudeville antics in hopes of getting rewarded with the sounds of his laughter. He didn’t think it was Roadhog’s particular brand of humor, but It worked. Roadhog loosened up, not such a tight ball of tension all the time, and began laughing even when Junkrat wasn't entertaining him.

The first time Junkrat heard him laugh when they were in battle, he almost took a fist to the head because he stopped fighting to gawk at him in utter glee.

“Yer laughin’!” he shouted. “I _love_ it!”

Roadhog responded by yanking him out of harm’s way. “Pay attention!”

Usually, he didn’t really _need_ to pay strict attention to what he was doing; lobbing a bomb without looking was usually enough to get the job done, but they were in the thick of things and one misstep could be fatal. So he whirled back around and joined in with Roadhog’s laughter, basking in the humor of mowing down their attackers.

The tips of his hair were burning by the time the smoke settled, and he absentmindedly batted away the flames. He was flooded with a rush of endorphins, adrenaline pumping from the heat of battle and heart soaring at the sound of Roadhog laughing with him instead of at him.

“Oh, that was _good_ ,” he said out loud, more to himself than for Roadhog’s benefit. He plunked himself down at their base of operations, a small campsite set up in the shadow of a dead, twisted tree, while Roadhog took a breather. Junkrat had asked about the hogdrogen before, noticing that Roadhog always kept a few cans on him. As best as he could figure out, the pressurised chemical mixture was meant to help with the radiation-induced pneumonitis that infected Roadhog’s lungs, and it took some of the sting out of minor wounds.

Junkrat had sneaked a huff of it once and then had to pretend like he hadn’t gotten high off the fumes, which was easier said than done. Roadhog had immediately picked up on it and given him a proper telling off, although Junkrat couldn’t remember a word of what he had said. His memory wasn’t his strong suit, even when he wasn’t tripping on compressed gas.

For now, he chewed on his thumb, using his teeth to rip off a hangnail and spit it on the ground. He examined the bitten down nail. His nail polish had almost entirely flaked off, the unfortunate result of picking at his nails when his hands weren't otherwise occupied. “Gimme the polish,” he said, holding out a hand. “I gotta patch this up.”

Roadhog sat down across from him and passed him the bottle of black nail polish that they both regularly used. It had become something of a ritual for them: after a long, hard day of spreading chaos and mayhem and evading law enforcement, they'd unwind by a fire with Piglet in one of their laps and touch up their nails.

With immense concentration, Junkrat focused on his paint job. He gripped the small brush in his fist, unable to comprehend how to hold it delicately between his thumb and forefinger, and carefully ran it over his thumbnail. His aim was poor, however, and the result was a shaky line that started on the skin below the nail.

“I can't watch this.” Roadhog plucked the bottle of nail polish out of his hand.

“Hey!” Junkrat protested, grabbing for the bottle, which Roadhog held out of reach. “I'm not finished!”

“Give me the brush.” Roadhog patiently waited for him to hand it over with a scowl on his face. “And your hand.”

Confused, Junkrat held out his hand. Roadhog took it in his own much, _much_ larger palm. It was the first time Junkrat had ever held hands with his bodyguard, and the surprisingly intimate gesture made his heart skip a beat. When had anyone ever held his hand? He couldn't recall. Not for a long, long time, if anyone ever had.

It was _nice_ \-- Roadhog's hand was rough and calloused, but warm to the touch, and it made his own long, bony fingers look positively diminutive. He was sure Roadhog could close his hand and envelope his entirely.

Roadhog laid Junkrat's fingers flat against his palm and picked up the brush the proper way, with two fingers, not like Junkrat's hamfisted method.

Junkrat's grin stretched across his face. “Ya paintin’ them for me? I knew ya were good for somethin’ beyond keeping me arse outta trouble!”

“Quiet,” Roadhog said, “Or I'll stop.”

Junkrat mimed zipping his lips with his free hand. Roadhog painstakingly painted each nail, while Junkrat marveled at his ability to stay within the lines. He admired the results. “I reckon y’should always paint my nails from now on,” he said. “Way better than anythin’ I could do.”

“That doesn't take much,” Roadhog replied, capping the bottle.

Junkrat waved his hands in an attempt to make them dry faster. “Low blow, mate. I do me best.”

Piglet trotted up to Roadhog and flopped onto his lap. Roadhog scritched his belly. “He reminds me of my old pig,” he reminisced, and Junkrat scooted closer to him. Roadhog so rarely talked about his past; every time that he willingly volunteered information, Junkrat hung onto his every word. He was so transparent about his own history that it was particularly special for him to learn more about his mysterious, reticent bodyguard.

“Yeah? What was his name?”

“Ink.”

Junkrat’s brow furrowed. “Ink? Why the heck did ya name yer pig _Ink_ _?”_

“Because he always ran out of the pen.”

In that moment, as Junkrat processed what Roadhog had just said, you could have heard a pin drop. When it finally sank in, he all but screeched with laughter. “Did you just tell a _joke_?” he said, voice brimming with amazement. “Roadhog! Y’ve been holding out on me!”

“Don’t expect them often,” Roadhog said, but there was a quiet sort of amusement to his voice.

Junkrat just grinned like a buffoon, beyond pleased that Roadhog was beginning to join him in goofing around.

Normally, they took turns sleeping in shifts, but with their current crime spree, there hadn’t been much sleep on either of their parts, and they spent a solid twenty minutes arguing over who would get to sleep first, during which time Piglet rolled onto his side and fell asleep.

“Okay, here’s an idea,” Junkrat said, holding his hands up. “We both sleep for say, an hour. Then we take shifts.”

“If we die, I’m blaming you.” Roadhog laid down next to Piglet, while Junkrat curled onto his side. He wrapped around his precious RIP-tire, sticking his limbs in between the spikes.

It was weird, falling asleep next to a slumbering Roadhog. Not weird in a _bad_ way, he thought to himself, just different. It had been one thing, falling asleep while someone who could very much kill you was awake next to you, but that had become the norm for him.

Eventually, he managed to drift off, still spooning his death trap of a tire. The rhythmic wheeze of Roadhog’s gas mask lulled him to sleep.

“Junkrat!”

Junkrat bolted upright at the sound of his name, loud and raspy next to him. “Whuh--?” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He had no idea how long he had been passed out for; it could have been fifteen minutes or two hours for all he knew.

“Piglet’s gone,” Roadhog said, voice urgent as he looked around them.

 _That_ woke him up. “Whaddya mean he’s gone?”

“I mean,” Roadhog said tersely, “he’s not here.”

Junkrat looked around him. There was no sign of the pig that they had both become attached to over the past few weeks. “Well, he can’t have gone far, I mean, he’s a pig, roight? They have stubby little legs.”

They packed up their belongings quickly, Roadhog anxious to hunt for Piglet, and picked a direction at random to walk in.

Junkrat was the first one who noticed. He sniffed the air. It took him a moment to place the smell, but the moment he recognised it, a chill shot up his spine. “Ah, Roadhog...” He suspected that Roadhog’s gas mask filtered out odors. He guessed it was a good thing.

He didn’t think he’d react well to the smell of sizzling pork.

He tried to protect Roadhog. “Maybe we should just cut our losses, Piglet’s probably livin’ the high life out in the wild--”

It was too late. Roadhog had pulled aside some shrubbery and gone stone still. Junkrat was afraid to see what he was looking at, but he peered around him none the same. His curiosity had always gotten the best of him.

A group of scavengers were clustered around a campfire. Junkrat saw himself in them: skinny, malnourished. He could see their ribs from where he was standing. But Roadhog wasn’t looking at them. He was staring at the picked-apart carcass by the fire, the strips of meat crackling on the cast iron skillet.

He reached for the scrap gun at his hip, then the bag around his waist. Junkrat’s heart plummeted into his stomach. He felt sorry for the poor sods around the fire -- if it had been him, if he had been the one out in the desert and he’d come across an honest-to-god _pig_ _,_ he would have done the same. “Roadhog, mate...”

Roadhog jammed the top-loader on his scrap gun and poured in all the scrap that was in his bag. “If you tell me not to kill them, we’re done. I’m going whole hog.”

Junkrat rubbed the back of his neck. “Roight. Do what you gotta do.”

He looked away as Roadhog charged through the shrubs, firing a stream of shrapnel that mowed down the unfortunate thieves.

\---

Roadhog was not the same after that. He retreated into himself, sullen and quiet. Junkrat tried cheering him up, telling him old jokes he'd heard back in the day and ramping up the physical comedy, but none of it worked. When his juggling routine failed to elicit so much as a snort of acknowledgment, he gave up. Roadhog clearly needed time to recover from his loss.

“Whatever.” No one could say he didn’t try, at least. He stood up. “I gotta piss.” Roadhog didn't acknowledge him as he walked away.

Junkrat walked until he found a cluster of bushes that would offer him some privacy. In many ways, his life had drastically improved since joining forces with Roadhog, but the one thing he did miss was the privacy of being solo. He couldn't take a leak or jerk off without feeling like he was violating some social more. You didn't want to be caught with your dick out in Junkertown -- it meant you were vulnerable, exposed, an easy target.

He had barely unzipped his fly when a hand clamped over his mouth and wrestled him to the ground.

“Keep your ugly mouth shut,” his assailant snarled in his ear. He pulled the hand off of his mouth and shoved Junkrat’s face into the ground with the weight of his arm. Junkrat struggled, wanting to fight back, wanting to shout for Roadhog, but dirt was filling his mouth and nose.

The attacker kicked him over onto his back, and Junkrat realised that he had removed his hand so that he could grab a rag to gag him with. He couldn’t have used his other hand to retrieve it because he _had_ no other hand.

Stunned, Junkrat forgot to yell for Roadhog. “Handless--” he gasped before the dirty wad of cloth was stuffed into his mouth.

“That’s not my fuckin’ name!” Handless, or whatever his name actually was, managed to keep his voice quiet even as he shrieked, high pitched and unhinged. He straddled Junkrat, using his knees to pin Junkrat’s arms to his side. “You slippery little rat, I can’t believe I finally found you. We’ve got some unsettled business to take care of. You and that pig over there are the ones who offed Crunch, yeah? And then there’s that whole matter back at the old omnium...”

Junkrat was suddenly acutely aware of the machete that laid on the ground next to them.

“Told you I’d cut your fuckin’ hand off, you little freak.” Handless grabbed the machete and brought it down on Junkrat’s forearm in one swift motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, here's a happy moment from this chapter: http://coconutmilkyway.tumblr.com/post/158370723547/nail-polish-partyyyyy-unshaded-piece-for


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is late, but I don't think there's anyone who actually religiously follows the update schedule so all's well that ends well -- I still plan on getting Friday's update on time tho! Anyways, you may want to brace yourself for some gore in the first few paragraphs.

Junkrat was no stranger to pain. But not like this, never like this. It was worse than when he’d lost his leg. Then, it had been blown clean off and shock had immediately set in. He had just stared at where his leg was, hardly registering that it was gone. This time, he was acutely aware of everything: the searing pain, the arterial spray, the fact that he was going to die a gruesome bloody death.

He screamed through the rag, the sound raw and muffled. Pain blinded him, and he screwed his eyes shut.

There was a bang, then warm, wet chunks splattered across him. He cracked his eyes open to find that Roadhog had blown Handless's head off. Blood spurted from what little remained, and his lifeless body slumped onto Junkrat, red slime and viscera oozing out of the stump. Roadhog dragged the corpse off of Junkrat and pulled the rag out of his mouth. Junkrat gasped, drawing in a ragged shudder of a breath.

"What the hell did I hire ya for?" he said, voice cracking. "I'm down a fuckin' arm thanks to you! Yer supposed to -- how the bloody _hell_ didn't you see him?" Later, he wouldn't remember what he'd said, his mind blocking out the trauma, but if he had, he would have regretted it. He was upset and delirious with pain, and it was making him lash out.

"I know," Roadhog said, red staining his hands as he tried to staunch the blood. "I'm sorry. I was distract--" Roadhog stopped himself, not willing to make excuses. His grief shouldn't have kept him from doing his job. “I'm sorry,” he finished. He pushed Junkrat's severed limb aside, perfectly painted nails and all. They both knew there was no chance of saving it.

The fire drained out of Junkrat. Roadhog sounded contrite, and he was too weak to fight back, so he just laid there, intending to do nothing but feel sorry for himself until he bled out. "I'm gonna die," he said with a whimper, his breathing harsh and shallow.

"No, you're not," Roadhog told him, fishing for a bandanna from his back pocket. He was firm, solid, everything that Junkrat wasn't.

He was a mess, bleeding freely and nearly crying from the agony -- the tears wouldn't come, but he was hiccuping with each unsteady breath. "Yes I am! Just leave me alone to _die!_ " he wailed. He was losing blood fast and the shock was beginning to set in.

“Don’t be melodramatic,” Roadhog growled. He wrapped the rag around the stump. “I just lost Piglet, I'm not losing you too.”

“You _do_ care.” His vision was swimming, head woozy with blood loss. He reached up with his stump to try and touch Roadhog’s face with his phantom fingers. It hung in the air uselessly. Roadhog undid Junkrat’s belt, pulling it out of the loops of his shorts, and he couldn’t help but say something. “What, now ya wanna get in my pants? This gets ya going?” He waved his bloody stump, his giggle very nearly turning into a sob.

“Shut. _Up_.” Roadhog wrapped the leather belt around his arm and yanked hard, tying off the makeshift tourniquet. His voice was tenser than Junkrat had ever heard it.

“Yer more scared than what I am."

Roadhog didn’t respond to the accusation. “That’ll keep you alive for now. Still needs to come off before necrosis sets in,” he said, all business. Junkrat had never heard the term before -- he certainly wasn’t as educated as Roadhog was -- but he thought he had a good idea of what he was talking about. When he’d lost his leg, part of his wound turned black and infected. One of the other Junkers coerced him into maggot therapy, larvae digging into his skin and eating the dead tissue. It had worked; he’d survived, and the stump of his leg was healthy, if nastily scarred. Still, he never wanted to relive that moment of his life. He shivered at the thought.

“I know someone,” Roadhog continued. He picked him up as if he weighed nothing at all. “From the Australian Liberation Front. She used to be a doctor before she was displaced.”

“I don't want any maggots in me. She's not puttin’ them in me, I don't want maggots in me, I won't do it, you can't make me.” Junkrat curled up in Roadhog’s arms, missing hand clutched to his chest.

“Maggots-- No one's putting maggots in you.”

“She's not doin’ it, no, no.” Junkrat could feel his grip on coherence slipping from him -- he was becoming delirious as the life drained out of his body.

Roadhog clearly had no idea what he was talking about, but he reassured him, “I won't let her put maggots in you.”

Junkrat closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay. Good. Okay.”

The last thing he remembered was the faint rumbling of the sidecar as they sped down the road.

\---

He felt like he was underwater. Not fully conscious, but not quite asleep either. Just drifting, the atmosphere around him heavy and suffocating. Bits and pieces came to him, cutting through the fog: a woman answering the door in her pajamas, a wet washcloth wiping away the blood from his chest and face, someone tending to the stump of his arm. More pain. Pressure on the wound site. A soft bed. Roadhog's voice, so distinct -- deep, rumbly, with the telltale distortion of his gas mask’s filter. Junkrat couldn't make out what he was saying. He heard the words, but his brain, thick with sleep, couldn’t parse them.

There was a brief spell when he woke up and saw the unfamiliar woman's face hovering above him, surrounded by a halo of wild black curls. " _Ava_ ," he thought. The name sounded right, as if he'd heard it many times in that half-dream state.

"You're going to be okay," she said, and he was vaguely cognizant of her wrapping a fresh bandage around his arm. The reassurance didn't do much to comfort him when he still felt like he was teetering on the brink of death.

"Nngh," was all he managed before closing his eyes again.

Ava pumped him full of antibiotics, and he spent most of the next few days in a haze, sleeping off the worst of the pain as his body fought infection.

Sleeping was good. It kept him from feeling the throbbing of his healing wound and the pins and needle sensation of where his fingers used to be. Unfortunately, it was hard to fall asleep and stay asleep when the fever set in, leaving him alternately too hot or too cold, a sweaty, shaking mess.

Fever dreams gripped him. His body was too weak to fully wake up, but his brain was marching on, sending him down long, confusing, endless hallways that exhausted him as he slept. He was in the throes of a particularly tiring dream when the shakes set in. He’d kicked off his sheets just moments ago when he had felt too hot, drenched and clammy beneath the blanket.

He was suddenly colder than he had ever been. He was shivering violently, the frame of his body wracked with tremors, when his brain vaguely registered the weight of someone laying down on the bed next to him. A thick, massive arm wrapped around him, dragging him close.

The shaking subsided, all the tension leaving his shoulders as he unconsciously relaxed against the warmth of the body pressed against his own.

A deep sleep claimed him, and for once, it was dreamless.

When he finally regained consciousness and struggled to sit up, he saw Roadhog and Ava working on a puzzle across the room. He had no idea how Roadhog managed to manipulate the tiny pieces with his huge fingers, but they had made some significant progress on the puzzle, a large scene that involved a lot of pink and pigs.

Roadhog looked up. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah.” He blinked, confused and disoriented. He’d been here for a few days, but it was like he was seeing it for the first time. It was a small but sterile studio-style house filled with echidnas. Salt and pepper shakers shaped like spiny anteaters, kitschy echidna knicknacks, pillows covered in fake quills. He thought he was having another fever dream, but as he warily scanned the room, it became obvious that echidnas were to Ava what pigs were to Roadhog. How did he manage to keep _finding_ these people, he wondered.

“Uh, Roadhog...” he said, then wet his lips, his mouth parched after being unconscious for so long. Roadhog nodded at a glass of water on the bedside table, which he gratefully took a long draught from. “Last night, or the other night, I don’t rightly know when -- did ya…?” He trailed off, not sure what exactly he was asking. For all he knew, it had been a tactile hallucination brought on from the infection.

“I’d be a pretty bad bodyguard if I let you freeze to death,” Roadhog said simply, placing another piece in his puzzle.

“Roight. Yeah. That makes sense.” He couldn't quite make heads or tails of his feelings regarding that, so he chose to compartmentalise it and deal with it later.

Roadhog stood up and stretched his arms over his head, cracking his neck. “How's your arm?”

Junkrat looked down and violently flinched. Truth be told, he'd almost forgotten it was gone. He could still feel his hand, missing fingers clenched into a tight fist that he could never release. The bandages were clean and fresh; either Ava or Roadhog must have redressed it recently.

“Good as gold,” he said, the forced cheeriness hollow even to his own ears.

The mattress sagged as Roadhog sat down on the edge of the bed, and he almost went sliding into the dip. “I’m sorry.” Junkrat needed a moment to figure out what was off about his voice, then he realised -- guilt. He'd never heard Roadhog sound guilty before; the man was downright unapologetic about his actions, regardless of their consequences. Junkrat had been expecting to get an earbashing from him, to be chastised for letting his guard down, because that’s what he got for allowing himself to be overpowered.

“Ain’t yer fault, big guy,” he said, and he meant it. “The asshole had it out for me for a long time. He’d have found a way whether or not ya were there.”

“What did you do?” Roadhog was reproachful; he’d known Junkrat long enough to know that he had almost certainly provoked the offending party.

“Ah...” Junkrat searched his memory, trying to recall what, exactly, he had said. “Think I made fun of his missing hand?”

"You're an idiot," Roadhog said. "Of course he wanted to cut your hand off."

It was a cold observation, but it was true.

Junkrat shrugged. "People always said I don’t think before I speak. Guess I just keep provin' them roight."

Roadhog shook his head.

The good doctor stood up. A vivacious woman in her early forties, she was wearing a sterile labcoat over a dress patterned with hearts and cartoon echidnas, and Junkrat could tell why Roadhog got along with her. They both enjoyed small, cute things. It was a weird thing for two anarchists to bond over, but it was strangely sweet. "I don't think we've been properly introduced," she said. "I mean, you were in and out a lot when I told you my name. I'm Dr. Ava Pennington. You're lucky Roadhog got you here when he did, you were really knocking on death's door there. Still, it made for a fun challenge, patching you up!" She was extraordinarily cheery for someone talking about how she had kept a patient from dying.

"Yeah, that's me, the lucky one. Lucky to have this oaf on my side." He stared at the bandaged stump of his arm. It was swollen, and he didn't want to see what it looked like under the dressings, fearing the worst. "Now what? I can't live like this, can I?"

"Nonsense!" Ava waved away his concerns. "Who needs two hands?"

" _I_ do!" he said, a touch of hysteria to his voice now. His brain was racing a mile a minute, running over everything he wouldn't be able to do without two hands. Connecting wires, building his mines, reloading his frag launcher -- hell, taking a piss would be infinitely more difficult with just one hand. There was also the fact that it had to be his right hand that Handless had cut off. His left hand dangled uselessly at his side, feeling pathetically weak.

“Plenty of people adapt to their missing limb with time,” Ava said brightly. “You’ll learn how to do things with just one hand.”

He couldn’t help but growl in aggravation. “Ya don’t get it, doc!” He pulled at his hair in frustration, both arms swinging up -- he forgot that only one of them was operational. It was distressing, because he could _feel_ his missing fingers, and they wanted to yank at his patchy hair. “This is my dominant arm, I _gotta_ use it -- how the bloody hell can I blow stuff up if I can’t even hold my launcher?”

“Your weaker arm will compensate,” Ava pointed out. “You’ll be able to hold it fine in no time.”

“No! No, no, no!” He was going to lose it, and Roadhog seemed to sense this, because he shifted closer. “It has to be _this_ arm! Aaagh, I can’t--” He looked up at Roadhog, eyes wild. “Roadhog, I can’t!”

“I know.” Roadhog looked over at the doctor. “Is there anything you can do, Ava?”

She surveyed Junkrat. “Get me an arm,” she finally said. “And a socket. You take care of the mechanics, I’ll have my wife work out a device to implant in you, and we’ll see if we can get you some proper functioning fingers.”

The relief Junkrat felt was physical, all the tension he had been carrying flooding out of him. “That’s good. Oh, that’s good,” he breathed. “Thanks, doc.”

“Don’t thank me yet -- you’re the one who has to build a functioning arm.” She winked at him.

Junkrat grinned for the first time since he lost his arm. “Mate, you have _no idea_ what I’m capable of.”

Ava’s wife, Rosa, turned out to be both a computer science genius and an excellent cook. She made tacos (vegetarian sweet potato for herself and Roadhog, traditional ground beef for Ava and Junkrat), and maybe it was just the near-death experience talking, but Junkrat had never seen anything that looked even half as delicious as the plate Rosa set down in front of him.

The only problem was that soft-shelled tacos were not particularly easy to eat one-handed.

“I am so sorry,” Rosa said, mortified as she watched Junkrat try to wrangle the tortilla with one hand.

Roadhog watched him get increasingly frustrated. “Do you need--”

“I can do it meself!”

He could not do it himself. He still refused help, however, and settled for attacking it with his fork. The rest of the table was silent as he continued stabbing the tortilla. Eventually he just ate the filling, although this was equally difficult, as he had to use his non-dominant hand and hadn’t mastered the art of the appropriate way to hold cutlery.

It was all very exhausting, and afterwards, he just wanted to go back to sleep. It wasn’t until he saw the sleeping bags on the floor that he realised that he had been occupying Ava’s and Rosa’s bed.

“Aw, what, I’ve been keepin’ yer bed from ya? Take it back!”

“Oh no, we couldn’t!” Rosa protested.

“You’re the invalid!” Ava added. Junkrat frowned, clutching his arm. He was down a limb, two if you counted his peg leg, but he wasn’t completely incapacitated.

“Honey, that’s not a politically correct term--”

“I’m the doctor here, aren’t I? No, invalid or not, you need bed rest. We’re fine on the floor, don’t worry your sweet cheeks about that.”

“No, no,” Junkrat insisted, “I’ll sleep with Roadhog on the floor, I’m used to that!” He paused. “I mean, usually it’s not _both_ of us sleepin’, but same thing.” Ava and Rosa shared a look, the significance of which went right over his head.

“Junkrat--” Roadhog began.

“What?” He glanced from one face to another. “What’d I say?”

Roadhog sighed. “Nothing.”

“I mean, if that’s what you’re accustomed to...” Rosa said.

“Yeah!”

As nice as it had been to be in a proper bed, it felt so much more natural to lay on the floor next to Roadhog, a pillow propping his stump up to keep it elevated.

They were all quiet as they tried to fall asleep, Ava and Rosa curled into each other on the bed, Junkrat and Roadhog snug in their sleeping bags, with Roadhog’s unzipped to accommodate his mass.

Junkrat rolled over to face Roadhog, hissing slightly at the throbbing of his stump. “Hey. Roadhog. You awake?” He couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed beneath the thick lenses of his mask or not.

“Mmm.”

Junkrat propped his chin on his left hand. “Y’could’ve left me to die,” he said. The thought had been on his mind since waking up. “Woulda been the smart thing to do, I wouldn’t’ve blamed ya. Why didn’t you?”

Roadhog grunted. “Wouldn’t have kept getting paid if I let my boss die.”

That was a good word. _Boss_. Made him feel powerful, even when he was down two limbs. “Yeah, but big guy, yer good enough to go solo. Keep on doin’ what we’re doin’ without me.”

“Maybe I don’t want to,” was all Roadhog said in response.

An electric thrill of glee surged through Junkrat, making him momentarily forget all about the pain in his stump of an arm. He had a friend! An honest to goodness _friend_ , one who didn’t want to ditch him when the going got tough! “Ah, thanks mate!” He impulsively hugged Roadhog’s arm, wrapping his own bandaged arms around his bicep.

“Don’t touch me,” Roadhog said, but this time, for the first time, he didn’t push him away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in Roadhog's perspective of Junkrat losing his arm and his unconsciousness, check out this one-shot! http://archiveofourown.org/works/12019908


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the last update before the holiday weekend, so Happy Hannukah and Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate!

“Roadhog,” Junkrat said, rolling flat onto his back and craning his neck to look at his bodyguard. “I’m dyin’. Gimme another hit? I could _really_ use it.”

“You’re not dying. And no.”

Junkrat made a low, guttural sound somewhere in the back of his throat. The phantom limb pain had been excruciating today. He kept reliving the trauma of Handless (what _was_ his name, anyway? He really should have known after dealing with Crunch for most of his life, but it legitimately escaped him) chopping his arm off, and he could _feel_ the ghost of his missing arm cramping up. Roadhog had taken pity on him and handed him a can of hogdrogen, instructing him to take no more than one long inhale. The aerosolized painkillers and anti-radiation drugs were like heaven, bringing sweet, sweet relief to his aching, broken body. Except now he was coming down from the high, and the pain was back.

“Start working on your arm. It’ll distract you.”

Junkrat knew in his heart of hearts that he was right, but he didn’t have to be happy about it. “Fine,” he groused. “Pass me some paper then.” He spread out a large sheet of scrap paper in front of him and gripped his pen in his left fist. “Least I have my writing hand,” he said to himself, printing the words “Assembly Instructions” across the paper in his sharp, blocky chicken scratch.

He automatically went to pass the pen to his right hand, and it dropped on the floor.

Roadhog watched it roll away from them. “Do you... write and draw with different hands?” he slowly asked.

Junkrat looked at him in confusion. “Yeah! Don’t everyone?”

“No. But that explains a lot.” Roadhog flipped through old assembly instructions and mechanical designs he had illustrated, noting the wide discrepancy between his crude handwriting and detailed drawings.

Junkrat felt as though his entire worldview had been shaken. He was learning all kinds of new things since joining forces with Roadhog. “Seriously, now?”

Roadhog nodded.

“Huh.” He would have to try writing with his right hand once he rebuilt it, but it was a foreign concept to him. “Well, it don’t matter now,” he said, waving his handless arm. He stooped to pick up the fallen pen.

He had never attempted drawing with his non-dominant hand before, and it was far harder than he had imagined. He was able to use the tender stub of his right arm to hold the paper in place, but the lines he drew were wobbly and inaccurate. He didn’t have the precision he needed to draw designs with tiny, fiddly bits. He struggled for a good ten minutes before giving up and crumpling the paper in frustration.

“Stupid piece of shit!” he said, disgusted with the drawing and disgusted with himself. “I’m gonna have to wing it.” He knew he was intelligent when it came to mechanical engineering, even if he was horribly inept in just about every other aspect of his life, but he wasn’t entirely confident in his ability to build a prosthetic without at least sketching it out first. There were so many joints and components involved, and he needed to know what kinds of supplies he was going to require. Roadhog had brought him an armload of scrap, and he still had his stash of screws and nuts and bolts in the bag slung around his hip, but he didn’t know if it was enough.

He’d worry about the tricksy little bits later, deciding to shape the larger swathes of metal first: the forearm, the wrist piece, the cup of the socket.

Junkrat quickly realised that the loss of his hand was an even bigger hindrance than he had imagined. It wasn’t _too_ difficult to use the tin snips to cut off strips of scrap metal, but bending the resulting pieces was a complicated process. He gripped a torch between his knees to heat up the sheet and attempted to bend it by propping the metal against his stump and using his other hand to curve it.

The torch slipped out from between his knees and burnt the flesh of his good leg. He swore profusely and threw the metal across the room. He knew he was pitching a tantrum, but by god, his leg _hurt_ \-- he could already feel the skin bubbling from the burn, which was sure to leave a nasty blister -- and he was frustrated at his incompetence. He _hated_ feeling helpless.

“Roadhog, mate, yer gonna have to be my hands,” he said. He didn’t want to admit that he needed help, but if he was ever going to construct this arm, he was going to have to swallow his pride. “Hold this.” Junkrat handed him the piece of metal and fetched the flamethrower, wincing as the burnt skin of his leg stretched taut.

He fired up the torch and used it to soften the metal. “Bend it,” he instructed. “Too much, back the other way -- that’s the ticket.” He switched off the flame and took back the curved piece of scrap, first comparing it to the size of his intact arm, then holding it against his stub to see how it fit. He sliced off another thin sliver to even it out, then reached for another piece of re-purposed metal. “Bottom half, do what ya just did.”

There was a part of him that got off on ordering Roadhog around like this. Sure, he had been the one to hire Roadhog, but he never really felt like top dog around him: Roadhog was always the one telling him what to do (or, more often, what _not_ to do) and getting him out of trouble. It was nice to feel like he was the one in charge for a change.

Bossing Roadhog around made him feel better about his hindrance, and it proved invaluable in shaping the various components of his arm. The bulk of the arm was doable with the materials he had on hand, but he soon realised he was going to need more supplies to construct the fingers. He was hesitant to send Roadhog out for the rest of the materials -- it wasn’t that he didn’t _trust_ him; it was just that he had a more discerning eye and knew exactly what he needed to build his masterpiece.

“Think we gotta make a scrap yard run,” he said, straightening up from where he had been hunched over his arm, which was finally beginning to take shape.

Leaving the house did him good. Ava’s and Rosa’s house was lovely, but Junkrat felt cooped up every time he was confined within four walls. He needed to be free, under the open sky and breathing the (sometimes dubiously) fresh air. He had no idea where they were after stepping foot outside the front door. He had zero recollection of the mad dash there, given that he was unconscious for just about all of it.

Climbing into the sidecar was more cumbersome with just one hand to boost himself up with. “Little help? I need a _hand_ here.” He cackled, raising his handless arm. “Really, though!”

Roadhog didn’t find it quite as hilarious as he did. He picked up Junkrat by the back of his harness and dumped him in the sidecar.

Junkrat was surprised to find that he was nervous when they arrived at the junkyard where Roadhog had gathered most of the day’s scrap. There were spikes littered among the metal debris, and they brought back memories of Crunch attacking him, which in turn reminded him of his handless lackey and the trauma inflicted on him. He stuck unnaturally close to Roadhog’s side instead of venturing out on his own -- bad things always seemed to happen to him when he separated himself from his bodyguard.

It was a productive trip, at least. Junkrat found several sheets of metal that were remarkably intact and plenty of piping that would serve as the framework for makeshift joints, creating hinges that would, with any luck, allow his fingers to bend. Screws and nails also abounded, and he spent an obscene amount of time examining each one, picking out only the ones that weren't bent or rusted. Roadhog helped him pile all the loot into the sidecar and he perched on top of it like a dragon on his hoard, happier than he had been in a long time as they drove back to the sanctuary of Ava's house.

“Oh, good!” Rosa said when they walked through the front door, loaded down with mechanical parts. She clutched her chest in apparent relief. “I was worried when we got home and didn't see you two -- I thought for sure that we'd scared you off.”

“I told her not to worry,” Ava said, squeezing her wife's shoulders. “You left your arm in progress. I _said_ Junkers wouldn't leave behind all that precious metal!”

“Never,” Junkrat said with a grin. He set down the handful of screws and nails that he had been holding. They rolled across the floor, settling into the cracks in the floorboards. He looked over Ava and Rosa: they were clean, respectable, fashionable, and didn't resemble any of the people he had hung around back in Junkertown. "Ya don't look like any Junkers I know, though," he observed.

"Oh, yeah, no!" Ava said. "Rosa's a regular city slicker, aren't you, babe? As for me, I never went that route after the whole 'omnic displacement' incident, but I knew Roadhog when he adopted that life so..." She shrugged. "I got my information from him."

"Roight, ya knew ol' Hog back in the day! What was he like, eh?" Junkrat was immensely curious to know about Roadhog's life before him. It was weird to think that he had existed before entering his life.

"Pretty much the same as he is now," Ava said, taking an apple out of the bowl on the kitchen table. She shined it on her dress and bit into it with a loud crunch. “Well. Not at first…”

“Ava,” Roadhog said, and Junkrat was familiar with that particular voice. It was the same voice Roadhog used whenever he started talking too much about things that were better left unsaid.

“Oh, come on, Mako!”

Junkrat looked back and forth between the two of them, confused. “Wait, who?” It took him a moment to realise that Ava was addressing Roadhog, and when it hit him, he laughed in delight. “Holy shit, that's yer real name? Mako,” he repeated, liking the sound of it on his tongue. He tried to commit it to memory, knowing that it would slide out of his head if he didn't use it enough. He had seen Swiss cheese once in Junkertown, when Wheels had acquired some and was peddling it alongside the usual barbecue meats, and he always thought it looked the way his brain probably did, full of holes.

“That's not my name anymore,” Roadhog said, and there was a note of finality to it. Junkrat guessed he could understand where he was coming from -- he often felt that he had left Jamison Fawkes behind when he became a Junker when he was six and had immediately acquired his new nickname. He was more Junkrat than Jamie at this point. “Don't call me by it.”

Junkrat was disappointed, but he dropped the subject. It would have been strange referring to Roadhog as Mako anyway, after calling him by his alias for so long. He had no idea how long they had been together by now (time was a funny thing), but Roadhog was just that to him: Roadhog.

“Well, in any case. He wasn't quite so…” Ava twirled her hand in the air, trying to come up with an appropriate, non-insulting adjective. " _Roadhog_ back then. The omnics ruined everything. They changed us all."

“You haven't changed, Ava,” Roadhog said, and she grinned up at him.

“Glad to know that you think so,” she replied. "The Australian Liberation Front was a good time. Rough, sure, but _oh_ , the things we did -- our attack on the omnium? That was the time of my life, I swear. Anyways, to answer your question, Junkrat, Roadhog was a good guy. Not to the omnics and the wankers who tried to stop us, but really, fuck them. Sometimes you have to step on a few people for the sake of justice and vengeance. And if they were too weak to stand up to that, then they deserved to get crushed. But to me, he was always a good egg."

Junkrat nodded. “He's a good egg to me too.”

“Stop calling me an egg,” Roadhog said.

“Yer shaped like one, though!” Junkrat poked his belly.

He still hadn’t learned that this was asking to be shoved.

Junkrat spent the rest of the evening working on his hand. He was able to design and create a stencil for each finger without having to resort to help, but he needed Roadhog’s hands to punch out every necessary hole and hold the sheet metal while he maneuvered the tin snips. He was utterly useless when it came to bending the fingers into shape and working with the piping to sew the joints together, and it was maddening. He so badly wanted to pour all his love into crafting those fingers. Instructing Roadhog in exactly what to do was more difficult than he thought it would be; his knowledge of mechanics and manipulation of materials was largely intuitive, and he couldn’t properly verbalise every little tweak he wanted to make.

To his credit, Roadhog tried. He was patient every time Junkrat needed to take a break and scream into one of Rosa’s hand-embroidered pillows. He asked all the right questions about what to do for his next step. He worked tirelessly to do everything that Junkrat couldn’t.

In spite of his frustrations and occasional tirades when Roadhog couldn’t magically understand what he was trying to convey, Junkrat was endlessly grateful. He’d had his doubts about whether Roadhog gave a flying fuck about him beyond being a source of payment, but his devotion to the project quelled those thoughts.

“Couldn’t have done it without ya, mate,” he said when he looked at the metal form of his prosthetic arm a few days later. “Yer a life saver, honest, thanks for all the help.” He nudged Roadhog with his shoulder.

“It’s not like I had a choice,” Roadhog said gruffly. He wasn’t looking at Junkrat, but at Ava and Rosa, who were side by side at the kitchen sink, washing dishes. Their conversation was indistinct from across the room, but Ava said something that made Rosa burst into peals of laughter and flick her with soapy water. She leaned in to give her a kiss, chaste but affectionate. “But if I had, I would have still chosen to.”

Junkrat wasn’t used to feeling warm and fuzzy inside. For a brief moment he thought he had heartburn, then he realised that what he was feeling was genuine human emotion. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Junkrat smiled to himself and toyed with one of the fingers on his prosthesis. If he could package up a moment and preserve it forever, he couldn’t think of a better memory to hold on to than right here, right now.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delayed update, guys, the holidays overwhelmed me and I'm currently incredibly sick. BUT since it's the last day of this hellish year, I thought I'd post a chapter to try and end it on a nice note. Happy New Year, I hope you all have a great 2017, and thank you for sticking with this fic!
> 
> Also, NSFW warning for this chapter, just as an fyi.

When Junkrat saw the machinery that was supposed to make his prosthetic functional, he was skeptical.

“That little thing is supposed to make my arm move?” he said, his thick brows raised.

“Sure is!” Rosa cheerfully answered. “It's amazing, the things you can fit into hardware these days, isn't it?”

Junkrat opened the panels of his arm and poked around the wiring that Rosa had instructed him to incorporate. “So I just connect _these_ to _that,_ and my brain can make my fingers work?”

“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that...” Rosa began.

"Here's the deal," Ava interrupted, strictly business as she plucked the device from Rosa’s fingers. She held up the innocuous looking piece of metal. "I'm going to surgically implant this baby into the bone of your arm via osseointegration. It's going to attach to the socket of your new arm, and with a little bit of training -- and this should, with any luck, be intuitive -- you can use the nerves and muscles in what's left of your forearm to send signals to your new arm. You'll be firing grenades again in no time." She folded her fingers into a mock gun and pointed at him with a “ _pshew!_ ”

Junkrat visibly perked up at this piece of news. “All thanks to that tiny thing? I’m impressed!” He was an expert in mechanics and rigging together devices to make things go _boom_ ; computers still had an aura of mystery about them.

“Oh, it ain’t brain surgery!” Ava said with a wave of her hand. She paused, then grinned. “Well. There may a bit of that involved too.”

Junkrat balked. “Oh, y’ve _got_ to be kiddin’ me -- what, yer hackin’ my brain?”

“Just a _little_ procedure!” Ava wheedled. “If you want to get a natural range of motion from that hand, you’re gonna need some remapping and neural implants to send signals from your brain to the muscles in your arm.”

This was all gibberish to Junkrat, who was focusing on the words “ _brain_ " and “ _implants._ ” “Gotta say, I dunno if I like that idea, doc.” He glanced down at his arms, flexing his remaining fingers. All at once, he decided he could stand a little poking and prodding inside his skull if it meant he could do the same with his right hand. He needed dexterity to manipulate his detonator and pull the trigger of his frag launcher, and the freedom to blow things up with ease was worth having brain surgery. “But I’m game.”

Ava clapped her hands, pleased with his acquiescence. She poked around his head, fingers traversing his scalp. “Look on the bright side -- I won’t have to shave your head! You’ve got a nice bald spot right where I need it.”

“Roight. Good.” He was too embroiled in trying to wrap his mind around the reality of having his brain invaded to appreciate the perks of his patchy, singed hair. At least all that radiation exposure was good for something. “So, ah, how does this work exactly?”

“Oh, it’s simple,” Ava said. She pulled a felt tip marker out of the pocket of her labcoat and drew some Xs and dotted lines on his scalp. “I’ll put you under anesthesia, clamp your head to the table so there’s no risk of slippage, and go to town. Just stick a little electrode thingo or two in the blood vessels by your motor cortex. We’re gonna remap your neurons so we can make full use of all those viable nerves and muscles you still have here,” she said, lightly poking Junkrat’s stump. It was just starting to heal up, and it was going to be sliced up again -- but at least this time, it was for good, not evil.

Truth be told, it made Junkrat a little woozy, and he was not one to get sick over blood and guts. It was different when it was your brain at stake. “Righto,” he said, perhaps a little too loudly to pass for normal. “Let’s do this then. Where do ya need me?” he asked, looking around the room. He had no idea what Ava was going to use for her makeshift surgical table, unless she had one stored away somewhere.

“Oh, no, we can’t do it tonight,” Ava said.

“What? Why not?” Junkrat demanded. Waiting to go under the knife was excruciating, and he just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

“You can’t have anything to eat or drink before surgery,” Ava explained. “If you have fluid or food in your stomach when you’re under anesthesia, it can get into your lungs. Which, as you can imagine, is not good.”

Junkrat could imagine this. He shivered at the thought, then resigned himself to the longest night of his life. “Fine, just kill me in the morning, it don’t make a difference to me.”

In spite of the gas mask, he could _see_ Roadhog roll his eyes, chin tipping skyward. “Ah, shut it, ya drongo,” he said.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Not with yer words, but I can see ya thinkin’ it.” He tapped his temple with his finger.

“You’re paranoid.”

Junkrat snorted. “Pig’s arse, I am.”

He was twitchy and anxious all night. It wasn’t the whole “lack of food and water” thing that made it especially unbearable -- he was used to a parched throat and growling stomach, they had become normal sensations over the course of his life -- but the incessant fear that things would go wrong. He didn’t know what would be worse: dying on the table, or waking up to find that for all their combined hard work, Operation Build a Prosthetic had failed.

He mulled over the two possible outcomes as he burrowed into the sleeping bag, listening to the deep wheeze of Roadhog’s filter as he slept next to him. Honestly, he thought the latter would be worse. He had put so much effort into building a sturdy masterpiece of a junkyard arm, he would be devastated if it was useless after all that. He didn’t want the risky surgery to not be worth it, especially if it put him out of commission for a week or more.

Morning couldn’t come fast enough. He was the first one to wake and was bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for everyone else to rise. It didn’t take long for Roadhog to wake up with Junkrat fidgeting next to him and muttering to himself under his breath. He wouldn’t let Junkrat wake Ava and Rosa, however.

“They deserve to sleep after dealing with you.”

“Whaddya mean? I’m the kinda guy what delights everyone around him!”

When Roadhog left the room to use the loo, Junkrat folded his arms and watched Ava and Rosa sleep, Ava's arm slung over her wife's waist. Roadhog's order not to wake them up stuck in his mind, so he settled for pelting them with crumpled balls of paper. It was more polite than shouting “Wakey wakey!”, he reasoned.

Several wads of paper clung to Rosa's wild mass of brown hair when she woke up, just as Roadhog returned and looked at him, head tilted reproachfully. Junkrat burst into guilty giggles.

The laughter subsided when he realised that it was time to go under the knife. After combing the paper balls out of Rosa’s hair and flinging the hairbrush at Junkrat, Ava sterilised the kitchen, which would serve as her makeshift workspace. Junkrat eyed the intimidating, metal clamp that was secured to the end of the table. He wasn’t entirely thrilled about the knowledge that his skull would be wedged between those jaws.

“Go shower while I prep,” she told Junkrat.

Junkrat stared at her blankly. He had never taken an actual, legitimate shower before. Indoor plumbing wasn’t really present in the shanty town he called home. Bathing in general wasn’t one of his big priorities -- fresh water was too scarce a commodity in the post-nuclear wasteland. Mostly he settled for dust baths and the occasional wipe down from the contents of his canteen. If he was really lucky, he’d find a hot spring in the desert, which was the closest he came to an actual bath.

“Sure. Okay,” he finally said.

He shut the bathroom door behind him and dropped his shorts. It was small but clean, with stone floors and a faux wood counter. He poked around the bathroom, flicking the plant that hung from the ceiling and running the sink until the tap water was scalding to the touch. The soap dispenser by the sink was, to nobody's surprise, shaped like an echidna. He pumped it one, two, three times, finding that it smelled like some kind of fancy flower. Lilac or something. He wouldn't know.

He was squishing the viscous liquid between his fingers when it occurred to him that he was alone -- properly alone -- with no chance of being walked in on. He chuckled to himself and slid down the wall to sit on the bathroom floor. He slouched over, his soaped up hand already working furiously between his legs. It was awkward using his non-dominant hand, but _god_ if it didn’t feel good. His mouth fell open into a silent ‘ _oh,_ ’ the slippery substance a thousand times better than his own spit. He had been living a lie this entire time, not realizing the wonders of makeshift lube.

But for some reason, Roadhog kept popping into his head. The first time or two, he tried shoving the mental image back into the recesses of his mind where it belonged -- it was a zone of proximity thing, of course he would conjure up a picture of the one person he'd socialised with in the last several months. After the third time of trying and failing to keep his head blank and just focus on how _good_ his own hand felt, he gave in. He imagined all the times he’d seen Roadhog’s chest when it wasn’t covered by its usual harness, the well-defined biceps the size of his head, the belly that he had, on more than one occasion, thought would make an excellent pillow. A quiet groan escaped his lips as he thought about every time Roadhog’s hand had circled his throat, about Roadhog’s body pressed up against his back, enveloping him when he was feverish--

He came the same way he did everything else in life: hard and fast. He exhaled, all five of his toes curling into the stone tile as his bodily tension evaporated.

He _really_ did not want to move again anytime soon. He gave himself a few more minutes of basking in the endorphin rush before wiping down his stomach and conceding to the need to shower.

Junkrat peeled off the bandage wrapped around his stubby arm. The stump was still tender and raw, but it was a far cry from the disgusting, gaping wound left behind after Handless had chopped it off.

He was about to step in the shower when he realised that he would have to take his peg leg off so it didn't get waterlogged and rusty and susceptible to breakage. This was quickly followed by the realization that he only had two working limbs with which to shower. There was no tub in which to take a bath instead, just a freestanding glass stall, and he sucked in a sharp breath of air.

Well. No guts, no glory. He grabbed onto the knob of the faucet to support himself on one leg, twisted it, and hopped under the lukewarm spray. He found that he could stand if he braced himself against the wall with his left hand, but that put him at a stalemate, with no way to actually wash himself.

Junkrat resigned himself to his fate and inched his way down the wall to sit on the shower floor. The water sprayed directly in his face and he spluttered, squirming around to find a more comfortable angle. It wasn’t easy, given his height and the small amount of available space.

He looked up through the water raining down on him to see that the soap and shampoo were on a ledge just out of reach. ”Fuckin’-- grrgh!” He groped for the bottles, the tips of his fingers barely managing to topple them. He ducked his head to shield himself as they crashed to the floor with a dull thud.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door. “You okay in there, Junkrat?” Rosa called out.

“Just peachy!” he replied through gritted teeth, trying to figure out how to squirt a dollop of soap into his only remaining hand. He had to make do with drizzling it over himself and lathering it up, although it was nigh impossible for him to reach his left arm with the same hand. He was sure there was an easier way to manage with one arm, but fuck if he knew how.

“Never takin’ a stupid bloody shower again,” he muttered to himself when he dragged himself out of the stall. He sat on the floor and toweled himself off as best as he could before reattaching his peg leg and pulling his tattered shorts on over bony hips. He didn’t know what to do with his hair, so he just left it as it was, dripping water onto the floor.

“You look like a drowned rat,” Ava observed when he emerged from the bathroom. “Clean, though. You had a _lot_ of dirt and ash on you.”

“I _feel_ like a drowned rat.” Junkrat felt bitter and betrayed. “Showers are the _worst_. Y’know how goddamn hard it is to shower when yer missin’ a leg _and_ an arm?”

Rosa clapped her hand over her mouth. “That didn’t even occur to me. I’m so sorry,” she apologised.

“You could have asked for help, you know,” Roadhog said.

The image leapt to his mind unbidden, and he envisioned Roadhog helping him shower, one hand around his waist to keep him steady on one leg, the other one methodically working over every inch of his body. That, coupled with his jackoff fodder from before stirred something in the pit of his stomach. He unconsciously placed a hand on his abdomen. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind for the future.”

“Enough jibber jabber,” Ava said, pushing him towards the table she had readied for him. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Trepidation welled up in Junkrat again as he sat down on the edge of the table. He placed a hand on Roadhog's arm. “Roadhog. My friend. If I cark it, I want ya to know I'm glad I met ya.”

“You're being melodramatic again,” Roadhog informed him.

About 95% of Junkrat's day to day life consisted of him being overemotional. He always felt things in extremes, and it led to melodrama. “You love it,” he replied.

“Stop.”

“Alright, alright, alright, shoo!” Ava said, elbowing Roadhog until he moved. “I can’t be having your dirty Junker hands around when I’m doing important surgical work. Out of the house. You, lay down,” she added, pointing at Junkrat.

He obeyed, fingers nervously drumming against the table. The last thing he remembered was Ava securing a mask over his face and instructing him to count backwards from ten. He got as far as “six” before he lost consciousness entirely.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful 2017. Also, if you would like a visual on Ava and Rosa, I did a thing: http://jabberwockyx.tumblr.com/post/155238165862/in-case-anyone-who-reads-my-fic-wants-a-visual-for (Rosa's not totally accurate but eh whatever.)

Waking up was a slow process. His eyes cracked open. He could see the trim around the top of the wallpaper, a border of faded flowers, before his eyes drifted shut again. 

He was vaguely aware of someone saying his name. 

“Should I scare him awake?” Roadhog. He’d recognise that voice anywhere.

“Please don’t.” Rosa, probably.

“Junkrat!” Ava tapped on his arm, and he finally managed to force his eyes open and keep them open.

“Did it work?” he said blearily. He reached up to touch the part of his head that was throbbing and felt thin stripes of tape over a fresh scar.

“Well, you’re talking, so it didn’t fail!” Ava said, chipper as ever. “No way of knowing how successfully the two will interface until you get your prosthetic attached, though. When you’re all patched up and your arm’s up to it, we’ll give it a little looky-loo.”

“Excellent,” he said. His throat hurt. His arm hurt. He just wanted to go back to sleep. Ava wouldn’t let him, though, and he quietly resented her for it. It helped when she gave him some yogurt, and he clumsily spooned it into his mouth with his left hand, refusing all offers to give him assistance. If he was going to be helpless and laid up, the least he could do was take agency over his own eating process. 

Cranky and in pain, he made everyone leave him alone for that first day post-surgery, unless they were offering him painkillers and antibiotics. They set him up on the couch in the living room, where he laid and counted the slats in the wood ceiling while eavesdropping on the others’ conversations.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you for a favor,” Roadhog said. He was sitting at the kitchen table with the two women, a tiny teacup looking ridiculously dainty in his hands.

“Shoot -- I owe you one for saving my arse when we mounted the omnium attack,” Ava replied. 

“We’ve come into some money.” Junkrat would have laughed if he hadn’t been feeling so miserable. That was one way to describe their take from robbing banks. “More than we should probably carry.” Junkrat was enjoying Roadhog’s use of the word “we.” He liked being a “we.” An “us.” A pair. 

“But you don’t want to put it in a bank,” Ava said knowingly. 

“Right.”

“Well sure, we can hold onto it for you!”

Roadhog raised his voice to address Junkrat from across the room. “You okay with that?”

Junkrat's automatic response was to deny everything. “Don’t know what yer talkin’ about, I wasn’t listenin’."

“Yes you were. Don’t pretend you weren’t.”

Junkrat stuck another spoonful of yogurt into his mouth and raised his hand in a thumbs up. He didn’t care where they kept their money as long as he had enough on him to burn when he felt like paying for things. Roadhog returned the gesture with a thumbs up of his own. 

Junkrat was less of a pill the following day, but he still  _ hated _ being bedridden and cooped up, and he was extremely vocal about it. The only thing that got him through was the knowledge that once his body recovered, he would have a working mechanical arm -- hopefully, at least.

He couldn't hide his nerves when it came time to finally test out the prosthetic. Ava helped him attach it that first time, covering his stump with a sock for padding before attaching the socket and limb.

The weight of his new arm felt strange, even though he'd managed to keep it reasonably light yet sturdy. He'd gotten used to having nothing there. Junkrat bent the mechanical arm at the elbow. He thought about moving his fingers, and one by one, they curled into his palm. A wide grin split his face in two. Ava looked both pleased and relieved that her surgical procedure was a success, and Rosa beamed at her with pride, her eyes full of nothing short of utter adoration. Junkrat laughed, the sound pure and joyful as he clenched his hand and unfurled his fingers. He picked up one of the apples in the bowl with ease. "Look, look what I can do!" he exclaimed, tossing it from hand to hand.

He didn't realise he was squeezing the apple too hard until he heard the sound of juice dripping on the table. “Oops-a-daisies.” He dropped the crushed apple and wiped his metal hand off on his shorts.

“Yeah, be careful with that,” Ava said, grinning at him. “It's kind of hard to gauge your own strength when you don't have sensation in your limb. But you'll learn.”

“Yeah!” he said, full of enthusiasm as he let out another laugh. “Roadhog, look at my hand!” He waved it in Roadhog's face.

Roadhog gave a belly laugh, clearly amused with how overjoyed he was. “I see it.”

“I can  _ use _ it again, oh, mate, y'had no idea, I was fuckin' scared shitless that it would be stiff, but look, I can hold things!” He impulsively grabbed Roadhog's hand to demonstrate, cold metal closing around three of Roadhog's fingers. He couldn't feel his hand wrapped around Roadhog's, but it still warmed his cold, black heart. Roadhog didn't pull away, but there was a brief moment of silence between all four of them. Junkrat dropped his hand before it became  _ too _ awkward. “Anyways. Look!” He wiggled each of his fingers individually. “I can't  _ wait _ to use it to blow things up, ain't gonna have no problems workin' the trigger or nothin'.”

“I  _ am _ really pleased with the range of motion,” Ava agreed, taking his mechanical hand in her own and examining it. “Good teamwork, everyone!”

“Honestly, we couldn't have done it without us all,” Rosa chimed in. “Roadhog helped you build the arm, I engineered our device, Ava performed the surgery -- if we hadn’t all chipped in, well, it wouldn't have worked. We make a good team.”

“Yeah!” Junkrat enthused. “Ladies and gentlemen, I say this little experiment is a rousing success!”

He couldn't stop looking at his hand for the rest of the day, seizing every opportunity possible to use it. “See, I can even draw again!” he pointed out as he grasped a pencil and illustrated the assembly instructions for his arm, just in case he ever needed to repair it (and, given the adventures he got up to in his daily life, he was certain that he would damage it more than once).

“You still hold the pencil wrong,” Roadhog observed.

“Well how the hell else am I supposed to hold it?”

Roadhog took the pencil from him and demonstrated the proper technique. Junkrat narrowed his eyes and tried to imitate it. It was awkward and totally unnatural to him after over twenty years of gripping writing utensils in his fist. He kept dropping it. "Like this?" he said, grasping the pencil between all of his fingertips and holding it up for examination.

Roadhog sighed. “No.” He took Junkrat's hand and repositioned his fingers so the tip of the pencil rested against his ring finger. “Like this. Or this,” he added, shifting it to rest against his middle finger. 

Junkrat dearly wished he had sensation in his metal arm, because he wanted to feel Roadhog's hand touching his, a thought that mildly concerned him. It was hard to come to terms with the fact that he was developing  _ some _ kind of desire for affection from his bodyguard. He preferred to just keep those thoughts tightly locked up and buried in the back corners of his mind instead of addressing them in a healthy manner or trying to figure out what exactly they meant. Still, even though he couldn't feel Roadhog's fingers against his, the knowledge of his touch sent goosebumps up the flesh of his arms.

"Yeah, I can't do that," he said. “Learned it this way, can’t do nothin’ about it now.” He wrapped his entire hand around the pencil and resumed the process of painstakingly detailing the small mechanical parts of his prosthetic. His blocky handwriting may have looked like chicken scratch, and he couldn't draw a person to save his life, but he  _ did  _ have a knack for technical illustration regardless of his pencil holding form.

Junkrat couldn't fall asleep that night. He just kept looking at his new arm and marveling at it, holding it up to look at it in the dim light of the living room clock. It was beautiful, an absolute masterpiece in the form of salvaged junk, but it needed some colour, he decided. He snuck out to the motorcycle, undid its protective tarp, and dug around in the bottom of the sidecar for one of his bottles of spray paint. Orange would be best, he decided. While he had a particular fondness for the colour yellow, part of his peg leg was orange, and he thought coordination would be best.

It was too dark to paint outside, and he didn't want to wake up the others by turning on the lights in the main parts of the house, so Junkrat slipped into the bathroom. He spread out towels all over the floor -- surely Ava and Rosa wouldn't mind if they got a little dirty, right? It would wash out. Probably. He didn't know anything about laundering. When he was satisfied there was enough coverage, he detached his prosthetic, laid it on the towels, and sat down on the floor to begin the painting process. It wasn't a simple matter of coating the whole arm in paint, as not  _ everything _ was going to be orange. He rather fancied himself an artist, albeit an artist of destruction, and he wanted to leave the bolts and underlying framework of the arm their usual steel colour.

He wasn't prepared for how difficult it would be to work the nozzle and maneuver the spray paint bottle with his non-dominant hand, so he hunched over it closely, being ever so careful and deliberate with his movements.

After a while of his nose nearly touching the spray paint, the high from inhaling paint fumes kicked in. It made him irrationally giddy. He started laughing for no real reason as he worked on covering the cuff of his wrist. The sound bounced off the walls of the small bathroom, and hearing his own laughter reverberating just made him cackle even louder. He didn't know what was so funny, but everything in his life seemed positively wonderful and silly at that moment in time.

Someone knocked on the bathroom door. "Junkrat?" Roadhog's voice, still heavy with sleep floated through the door. Apparently he had woken up, found the spot next to him missing, and gone to investigate. "You okay?"

"Yeah, sure I am! C'mon in, big guy, plenty of room for you in here."

Roadhog opened the door to the bathroom and took in the sight of Junkrat sitting on the bathroom floor, knees spread in an inverted W, surrounded by paint-stained towels. Junkrat caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror and had a better sense of what Roadhog was seeing: patchy hair more wild than usual and his long nose stained bright orange. Junkrat laughed harder and pointed at his reflection.

"What the hell." Roadhog grabbed his upper arm and hauled him to his feet, Junkrat stumbling to regain his balance and bracing himself against Roadhog's belly. "Are you insane? You're spraying paint in a tiny bathroom with no ventilation."

"Is that bad?" Junkrat genuinely had no idea, never having painted indoors before.

"Depends on if you want brain damage and bad lungs."

Junkrat gasped. "Hold the phone, does that mean I would get to wear a mask like yers? ‘Cause if so, then yes I do!"

Roadhog shoved him out of the bathroom. "Idiot. Go back to bed."

"I mean, don't mind if I do, but my arm's not done yet!"

"You can finish it in the morning. Outside. With something to cover your face. Like you're supposed to do."

Junkrat hummed, a long, drawn out "mmmmm" sound before acquiescing. "Alright, I'll listen to ya this time, but remember, I'm the boss!” He jabbed his thumb into his own chest. “I should get to make the executive decisions around here."

"Not when your decisions are stupid and will get you killed."

"Aw, ya worried about me?" Junkrat cooed. "Gotta say, I'm touched--"

Roadhog gave him another push, and he sprawled onto his sleeping bag. "Bed," he repeated, lowering his voice so as not to wake Ava and Rosa.

Junkrat wiggled into the sleeping bag and stretched out. "Ya always take care of me, dontcha."

"Someone has to. You can't take care of yourself." Well, he wasn't exactly wrong. "How did you survive to adulthood?"

Junkrat shrugged, giving him a silly grin that Roadhog probably couldn't see in the dark. "Good luck and great genes?"

"Shut up."

Junkrat obliged. Whether it was the late hour or the side effect of too many inhalants in his system, he passed out in seconds.

He woke up in the morning to find that his mechanical arm was fully painted and mostly dry, suspended on the kitchen counter so that it could dry from all angles. "Ya finished it for me?" he asked. Either Roadhog was the culprit, or he actually had finished it himself and had simply blacked it out in his paint-addled high.

Roadhog shrugged. "Maybe."

It was close enough to a "yes" for him. Junkrat grinned and slapped him on the back. "Aw, thanks mate! What would I do without ya?"

"Be dead, probably."

"Yeah, probably," Junkrat jovially agreed.

\---

“You sure you two don't want to stay a little longer?” Rosa asked. She and Ava hadn’t brought it up, but it was time for the two Junkers to leave. Junkrat was as good as healed after their lengthy stay, and they were itching to resume their life on the outside. 

There was a part of Junkrat that would miss the stability of having a roof over his head and someone to cook free meals for him, but the part of him that longed for adventure was stronger.

“Nah, it's time for us to hit the road,” he said. “Can't keep us chained and all that.” Roadhog nodded in wordless agreement. 

“Well, come back over anytime, you hear? Even if it’s just to withdraw some money from your new personal bank.” Rosa stood on her tippy-toes to hug Roadhog, then Junkrat. His massively hunched over posture and tendency to balance his weight on his peg leg by crouching put him on relatively the same level as her 5’10” height. Ava squeezed both of their hands and saluted them both.

“You know you’re always welcome here, Roadhog, if you ever get tired of the enforcer life. You too, Junkrat, since the both of you look like a package deal.” Neither of them tried to deny it, not having gone into the details of why Roadhog was accompanying Junkrat in the first place. It was a complicated business, and the less people who knew about his treasure and need for a bodyguard, the better. 

Red dust kicked up behind the motorcycle as they took off, venturing back into the wilderness that served as home. As nice as it had been to be cared for by Ava and Rosa, Junkrat was glad to be back on the open road, in his rightful place in Roadhog’s sidecar.

“I can’t wait to try this baby out,” he said, flexing his mechanical fingers. “Where should we hit up first?”

“You pick.”

Junkrat oohed. He had  _ power _ , the ability to control their destination. It was quite the heady sensation. “Honestly? I could go for some lollies.” It wasn’t often that he got to eat chocolate, and it was always a treat when he did get his grubby fingers on some. They ended up at a sweet shoppe in the first town they came across. They mutually agreed that it wasn’t worth sticking up the place, as they needed the proper amount of time to decide what they wanted to eat, and besides, it was relatively cheap.

Still, Junkrat illegally sampled everything that he could get away with.

The woman behind the counter squinted at them while they paid. “Don’t I know you two from somewhere?” she asked as she rang up their purchase.

“Depends,” Roadhog answered. “Do you watch TV?”

A giggle burst out of Junkrat. After the major setback of losing his arm and the time lost to recovery, he was sure they weren’t on the news with any real frequency anymore, but when they were at the pinnacle of crime, there was many a news story warning the public about the two dangerous criminals -- or a couple of idiots, depending on which outlet was reporting. 

They left before she could catch on. 

Junkrat sucked on a Bertie Beetle chocolate bar as they walked back to the motorcycle, finding it better than any of the actual beetles he had tasted. Roadhog waited to eat his pink musk sticks until they were alone and he could push up his mask, which Junkrat still wished he would remove just once.

"Wait just a tick," Junkrat said, flinging an arm out to stop Roadhog in his tracks. He pointed at a bottle shop across the street from the sweets store. "Mate, I think we just found our next heist."

"A bottle-o?"

"Yeah! Think about it, we get all the booze we can drink and get pissed to celebrate this." He waved his mechanical arm. "Plenty expensive too, so it's worth the break-in. We can drink like kings, get all the top shelf, quality stuff!"

“Hmmm.” It was a thoughtful hum, one that Junkrat found usually preceded Roadhog agreeing to go along with his latest scheme. “It’s a plan.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Things take a turn.

They decided to hit the place up at night. 

“Who’s the most dangerous bird in the world?” Junkrat cooed at the cassowary he had insisted on picking up for the heist, breaking it out of a nearby “save the cassowary” zoo. 

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Roadhog said. "That thing can disembowel you."

Junkrat eyed the cassowary's razor sharp talons. "Nah. I'm tellin' ya, this is a  _ genius _ idea," he said.

"We'll see," Roadhog said, with the tone of someone pretending not to judge while secretly being extremely judgmental.

Junkrat tapped on the glass of the bottle shop window with his metal finger until the pane shattered. The store's alarm immediately began wailing. "Fly, my pretty!" he whispered, tossing a piece of fruit through the broken window. The large, flightless bird, which was practically his height, gave a low, dinosaur-like rumble of a growl and followed the source of food. Junkrat hightailed it back to Roadhog's bike, shouting "Go, go, go!"

They peeled away to relative safety and waited for the cops to show up to investigate the disturbance and apparent burglary.

“I hope it kicks ‘em in the neck,” Junkrat said. Roadhog nodded sagely. 

They were too far away to see anything but the flashing of lights and the sound of sirens in the distance, but if Junkrat strained his ears, he was convinced that he could hear the disturbance. His plan was simple: stage an incident of a cassowary pecking in a glass door and setting off the burglar alarms. Wait for the police to investigate, disable the alarm, and drive away. Finish breaking in with no worry of the alarm going off, and take his sweet time before making off with as much booze as he could carry. A stroke of genius, really, he didn’t understand Roadhog’s misgivings.

They waited for the flashing lights to disappear, discussing what was probably going on ("Bet it's takin' so long because they can't figure out how to capture him. Idiots. He's attackin' someone for sure, mark my words."), then held off for another twenty minutes before deciding it was safe to drive back to the bottle shop. They arrived to find the broken door covered with a thick tarp, and the bird nowhere in sight.

"Shame," Junkrat said, "I woulda liked to keep him."

"We are not keeping a cassowary."

"Why not?" Junkrat demanded. " _You_ got to keep Piglet!" He immediately regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He sucked in a sharp breath of air, hoping he didn't inadvertently upset Roadhog by reminding him of their pet pig's grisly demise.

"Piglet was different," Roadhog replied, and Junkrat couldn't decipher his tone. He thought he sounded wistful, maybe. "He wasn't a killer bird."

"I mean. True." Junkrat conceded the point.

"And he actually fit in the sidecar."

"Okay, okay, I get it!" So maybe it was a little unrealistic to keep a six foot tall bird with a reputation for attacking humans and animals alike as a pet. “Don’t go dashin’ all my hopes and dreams at once.”

Roadhog sliced through the tarp with his bowie knife and they slipped inside.

"Oh, this is good. That's more like it." Junkrat rubbed his hands together as he surveyed all the options available to him. "Okay, what's gonna get me bombed out the quickest?"

He had no idea what constituted "good" alcohol, given that he wasn't familiar with brand names in general -- he just knew basic grog, whatever swill happened to be around Junkertown, usually passed around in unlabelled bottles between Junkers. So he just ran down the aisles, pulling anything that looked good, namely things that were brightly coloured or in shiny metallic bottles. Roadhog was more discerning, taking his time to stand in front of the whisky section and pick out  _ just _ the right thing.

"Don't know why yer so concerned about it," Junkrat said. "S'all gonna get ya drunk anyway, roight?"

"Yes, but I have taste."

Junkrat snorted. "Sure ya do. Yer a real classy bloke."

Red and blue lights flashed outside the window. 

“Ah, goddammit,” Junkrat said, several bottles of alcohol tucked under his arm. “It’s the pigs. And not the kind you like, either.”

“You need to stop making that joke.”

Junkrat didn't hear him. “What the bloody hell, they weren’t supposed to come back!” 

Roadhog peered outside the window. They were surrounded by police cars, sirens wailing, and officers aiming at them, guns at the ready. "I told you this wasn't a good plan."

"Oh, piss off, yer objection was to the cassowary, not the rest of it! Besides, ain't nothin' we can do about it now. Come on, let's give them what for."

"I'm never listening to you again," Roadhog said, tucking his preferred bottle of whisky under his arm and pulling his scrap gun out of the holster at his hip.

Junkrat didn't believe a word of it. Roadhog had made that threat before. "Sure ya will, mate." He hopped to look over Roadhog’s shoulder. “Yeah, we’re not gettin’ out the front door.” He shrugged and sprinted down the wine aisle, peg leg clacking on the tile. “S’alright, we’ll take the back way out.” 

He lifted his grenade launcher, and Roadhog’s voice rose in panic. “We’re in a bottle shop, don’t--”

The force of the explosion sent Junkrat flying backwards. Flames flooded the point of impact, licking their way down the shelf frame and spreading onto the wallpaper of the building.

Junkrat winced. “Well, that didn’t work.” If he had taken the time to think about what he was doing, he would have caught himself. Explosions were his specialty, but he hadn’t even considered the volatile nature of his environment before charging into action. Not his finest moment, he ruefully thought to himself. Maybe his subconscious just wanted to see the explosion.

“Understatement of the century,” Roadhog growled, grabbing the chain of Junkrat’s RIP-tire and using it to haul him away from the rapidly growing blaze.

“Ah well,” Junkrat said, going limp as Roadhog dragged him across the store. “A little fire never hurt anyone.”

He was more surprised than anything else when Roadhog let go of the chain to grab him by the throat and pin him to the wall. 

“Yes, it has,” Roadhog said, his voice thunder. Junkrat’s life flashed before his eyes. He wished he had blown up more buildings.

“G-gotta say, I thought we were past this stage in our relationship, mate,” he choked out. His fingers scrabbled against Roadhog’s, attempting to get him to at least loosen his grip, but it was like trying to make a brick wall budge.

Roadhog released him. Junkrat gagged, an awful hacking sound, and massaged his neck. “Oi. Didn’t know ya were so touchy about fire, what the heck.” He side-eyed Roadhog, making a mental note to be exceptionally careful about what he said for the rest of the night. 

"Come out of the building with your hands up!" one of the police officers shouted over the megaphone.

"Well, they don't look like they're gonna listen to reason. Whatever, let's go show them what Junkers are made of, eh?" Junkrat dropped some of his bottles, which crashed onto the floor and shattered. Alcohol pooled around his feet, but he wasn't paying any attention to it, instead hefting his frag launcher up with his mechanical hand. "Let's give this baby a whirl!" He laughed, flexing metal fingers around the gun.

Junkrat kicked down the rest of the tarp with his peg leg and cleared a path for them by firing out several grenades. Someone shot at him, and Roadhog grabbed him by the arm to pull him out of the line of fire. "Oh, ya really shouldn't've done that!" Junkrat said, throwing a mine at the cop who had the gall to try and shoot him instead of taking him alive like a good, reasonable man of the law. The mine stuck to his flak vest.

Junkrat pulled his detonator out of his pocket and pressed the button. Bloody body parts went sailing through the air, and he was pretty sure he heard more than one officer gasp. "Good fuckin' riddance!" he shouted, running for the motorcycle.

He looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Roadhog right behind him, or else lassoing one of the cops with his chain hook. He didn't know how it happened, exactly, everything was a blur of activity and chaos, and he had been too focused on what he was doing to keep an eye on Roadhog. He instantly regretted his inadvertent selfishness, because somehow, some way, Roadhog's hands were wrenched tight behind his back. Junkrat froze on the spot, eyes wide.

"Move it!" Roadhog roared at him.

"No!" Junkrat hollered in return, tearing back in the direction of Roadhog and the cop who had him in riot cuffs. "Leave no man behind!"

"Don't be an idiot!"

"I was  _ born _ an idiot!" Junkrat grabbed the tire off his back and yanked on its chain, revving up the motor. "Fire in the hole!" he shouted, mostly for Roadhog's benefit, giving him a heads up that there was a motorised bomb coming his way.

Roadhog broke free of the cops, who dove out of the way of his RIP-tire, which exploded spectacularly. One of the two cops who had been restraining Roadhog didn’t get up again.

Junkrat ran after the tire. "Mine, mine, mine!" He snatched it up and parked it on his back where it belonged. Once he'd secured his treasure (which made him feel guilty, in retrospect -- his partner in crime was more important to him than any treasure), he bolted for Roadhog.

Roadhog leveraged his hands and yanked at his riot cuffs, the thick plastic snapping clean in two. Junkrat crowed with delight, but his laughter was sharply cut off. A baton jammed him in the small of his back, just below his tire, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground.

Roadhog picked up his hook, spooled out a length of chain, and flung it at the officer who was subjugating Junkrat. It lodged in the back of his neck and caused him to cough up blood, which spilled onto Junkrat’s back.

Junkrat was too proud of Roadhog and relieved at being freed to care about being contaminated with a stranger’s blood. “Hah!” he barked, wiggling out from under the dead victim and scrambling to his feet.

It was a short-lived victory. More police cars had shown up, their brakes squealing and cops pouring out to swarm the two of them. Junkrat wished he had more muscle on him to strong-arm his way out, but at least he could say that he went down kicking. It took six of the biggest and best police officers to wrangle Roadhog into submission, securing his hands with iron leg shackles -- his wrists were too big for standard cuffs.

“Well, that didn’t end the way I intended it to,” Junkrat said once they were both crammed in the backseat of the police cruiser, hands cuffed behind them. “At least no one died.”

“Three people died,” Roadhog said.

“No one important,” Junkrat reasoned. “Like us!”

Roadhog chuckled. “True.”

“And just for the record, I blame you.”

Roadhog whipped his head around to stare at him, presumably glaring beneath his gas mask. “This was  _ your _ idea.”

“Well, ya should’ve talked me out of it! My genius ideas only work out like, 50% of the time. It’s statistical!”

“I told you it was a bad idea. You didn’t listen.” Roadhog thumped him with his shoulder. 

“Hey!” one of the police officers shouted from the passenger seat. “Quiet in the back!”

They both ignored him. Junkrat addressed Roadhog. “So, are we gonna talk about--”

“No.”

“I didn’t even finis--”

“No.”

Junkrat quietly stewed in his own irritation. Roadhog’s reaction to the fire was different than anything he’d seen out of him in months, and it had alarmed him. If he was thinking logically, he would have figured that it must have been some kind of post-traumatic reaction, but it wasn’t like Roadhog was averse to their campfires. His curiosity was killing him. 

When they arrived at the station, Roadhog muttered, “For once in your life, keep your big mouth shut and be quiet.”

“Yeah, yeah, quiet, sure, I can do that!”

The police uncuffed Junkrat first when they were inside, and he immediately reached for one of the canisters on his harness. He managed to whip out a grenade before he was tackled. It bounced behind him, where it detonated and set the tips of his hair aflame. He was promptly handcuffed again, hands in front this time.

They attempted to forcibly escort him from the room, but Junkrat dug his heel into the ground and resisted, nearly snapping his neck to look back at Roadhog. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, what about him? We’re in this together, ya can’t separate us!”

“Oh, don’t worry,” one of the officers said dryly. “You’ll be tried for the same crime. I’m just processing you.”

"Well, at least we go down together," Junkrat said. He was unfazed by it all; he was used to rolling with the punches, and he had figured they were bound to get caught someday. There was no way in hell they wouldn't receive the maximum sentence for capital murder and larceny, among other things, so he didn’t think there was any point to feigning innocence or trying to minimise their punishment.

Besides, he didn’t plan on staying imprisoned for long. Junkrat was stupidly, foolishly overconfident in his ability to bust out of confinement. He was scrappy, a life in Junkertown teaching him how to improvise weapons, so he was sure that sooner or later, they'd find a way to make a run for it. Australian convicts had been escaping prisons since the 1700s, who was to say that he couldn’t be one of them? He was an ambitious guy.

They divested him of his gear and weapons, leaving him in nothing but the underpinnings of his harness, his shorts, and his boot, and cataloged all of his belongings, down to his belt and shoestrings.

For the first time since they had been shackled, Junkrat felt a current of fear surge through him. “Whaddya think yer doin’? Hands off me tire!” 

One of the officers hefted it up. “Yeah, we're letting a criminal keep his weapon,’ he said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “How stupid do you think we are?”

“Pretty damn stupid, if yer askin’,” Junkrat answered without thinking. “Come on, I can take the spikes off and everything, just lemme keep it -- s’got sentimental value!”

“Nice try. It's going into evidence. Now sit down,” one of the officers said in disgust, leading Junkrat into a small, dingy room with a table in the center. He pulled out a stack of paperwork and dropped it on the table. Junkrat sat down, squinting in the too bright light. His fingers twitched in his lap in spite of the restraints. He was filled with dread and anxiety -- his  _ treasure  _ was in that tire! He tried to calm himself down. He was going to escape. He was going to get to the evidence locker. And he was going to blow up the asshole who dared to separate him from his tire.

This made him feel significantly better.

"Name?"

"Junkrat."

The officer narrowed his eyes at him. "Your real name. Cut the bull."

"Mate, it's like I told ya -- it's Junkrat!" he exclaimed, his handcuffs clinking as he spread his palms out as far as they could go. “Realest name I’ve got.”

The officer put the pen down and stood up, looming over him. Junkrat really wanted to stand up and straighten himself out to his full height, because he was  _ definitely _ taller than this six foot asshole. He tried to, unable to ignore an impulse when it seized him, but he couldn't get the chair to scoot back in his current predicament.

The cop reached for the taser on his belt. "Listen up, wiseguy. I don't give a rat's ass about whatever aliases you Junker idiots go by. What name did your good for nothing mum give you when she dropped you like the turd that you are?"

Junkrat scowled up at him. He knew he should have been more offended by a slight against his mother, but the truth was that he barely even remembered her. As it was, she was just a blur in his memories, a distant figment from the days before the nuclear explosion. "Well, ain't you a roight ray of sunshine? The name's Jamison Fawkes." It felt weird calling himself that; he'd gotten so used to just being Junkrat. It was who he was at this point; Jamison Fawkes felt oddly formal, and no one had called him Jamie in at least fifteen years.

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Junkrat gave him a dirty look.

The rest of the booking process could not have gone less smoothly. He had no address (“Put down Woop Woop, that’s the closest I got.”), no kin (“Does Roadhog count? Partner in crime’s kinda like family, roight?”), and an obscenely long criminal history (“Where do I start? Also, define 'crime.’”). At least fingerprinting was relatively painless -- all he had to do was press his hand to a screen. 

“Least I've only got one. Less work for ya, eh?” He waggled his fingers at the attending officer.

The mugshot was his favorite part of the whole ordeal. They finally uncuffed him and handed him a black slate with the words "Jamison Fawkes" and his identification number, 65488-4456-12, above it. He graciously accepted with a “Don't mind if I do!”

They ordered him against the wall, and he straightened out of his slouch, drawing himself up to his full 200 cm. 

“Say cheese,” the attending officer said sardonically as he positioned the cameras. 

Junkrat put on his cockiest smirk and tilted his chin up as he leered at the camera. His hair was still smoking from the grenade disaster. “Cheese!” he said, just as the flash went off and temporarily blinded him. “Think I squinted a bit there, mate. No chance of a do-over?”

“None whatsoever.”

He caught a glimpse of his mugshot as they led him out of the room. “Not too shabby,” he said with a snicker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case you've never seen Junkrat's mugshot: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xpvTxjAAzeI/hqdefault.jpg


	13. Chapter 13

Junkrat wasn't the biggest fan of the black and white striped jumpsuit he was forced to wear after surrendering his own clothes. He would have preferred the prison greens of old, but a lot had changed after the Omnic Crisis, including the colours used to identify felons.

He languished in a single occupancy holding cell until court opened the following morning. He hadn’t expected that he would be so put out about being separated from Roadhog -- after all, he’d gotten used to being by himself over the years. Solitary confinement wasn’t all that different from the many nights spent by himself in the Outback. But things were different now. He’d gotten a taste of what it was like to not spend all his time alone, and he didn’t want to go back to living like that.

He was grateful when the door to his cell swung open the next morning and he was shackled to be taken to the magistrate’s court for his arraignment, because that meant he’d get to see Roadhog again.

Junkrat was blinded by several flashbulbs on his way into the courtroom, and he screwed his eyes shut. “Oi! What gives?” He hadn’t understood just how high profile the case was, with reporters flocking to the scene overnight.

He was seated next to his partner in the dock, facing the judge while a correctional officer stood beside them. He grinned at Roadhog with a “Hey!” He had no way of knowing whether Roadhog returned his smile, but judging by his silence, he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

He fiddled with the fabric of his jumpsuit until court was called to session.

“All stand for the Honourable Justice Knowles.” Junkrat obediently stood up alongside Roadhog, only to immediately sit back down when the judge took her seat. _What a stupid formality_ , he thought to himself.

“The Queen v. Jamison Fawkes and Mako Rutledge.” _Who?_ Junkrat thought, immediately followed by, _Roadhog?_

He was still marveling over the revelation that Roadhog had a full name when he heard, “Mr. Fawkes and Mr. Rutledge, you are charged with one count of robbery, one count of conspiracy to commit robbery, and three counts of murder. On the night of 23 October, 2073, you entered the Billington Bottle Shop with the intent of robbing it of its contents, stole several hundred dollars worth of liquor, and willfully, knowingly, and deliberately killed Sergeant Harris, Senior Constable Kelly, and Senior Constable Nguyen in the execution of their duty. Jamison Fawkes, how do you plead: guilty or not guilty?”

Junkrat stood up, chained hands banging on the railing of the dock. “Guilty,” he said.

He could feel Roadhog’s sharp gaze fixated on him, and he turned his head to look at him. _Trust me_ , he pleaded with his eyes.

“Mako Rutledge, how do you plead: guilty or not guilty?”

Roadhog sighed and hefted himself to his feet. “Guilty, Your Honour.”

“Mr. Fawkes, Mr. Rutledge, you do understand that by pleading guilty, you are waiving the right to a trial?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” they both answered in unison.

“Are you entering this plea freely and voluntarily, with no outside coercion?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Junkrat said, impatiently answering all of the judge’s questions. Roadhog was more level in his responses.

“Very well,” the judge said. "I find that your plea is voluntarily made with the understanding of the resulting consequences, that you are competent and aware of what you are doing, and that your plea is sustained by the facts of this case. I accept the co-defendants' pleas to counts one through five of the indictment and find them guilty of the offenses expressed in those counts."

Their sentencing date was fixed, their lives turned over to the Supreme Court, and they were denied bail.

“What are you thinking?” Roadhog grumbled from behind Junkrat as they were led out of the courtroom to rot in jail until their sentencing.

Junkrat twisted around to get a better look at him. “The whole world knows we're guilty, mate. Ya really wanna sit through a whole trial when we both know what they're gonna say at the end of it?”

“No talking!” the transport guard barked at them.

Junkrat responded with a rude hand gesture. He was getting very tired of authority figures.

\---

Sentencing came quicker than anyone had anticipated, in spite of the fact that they were referred to the state’s Supreme Court, as were all murder cases. Junkrat figured it was due to a combination of the high profile nature of their case -- it was exceedingly rare for multiple officers of the law to be killed in the line of duty -- and the fact that the county jail wanted then transported to somewhere more secure as quickly as possible.

“Jamison Fawkes and Mako Rutledge, you have pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, one count of robbery, and one count of conspiracy.”

Junkrat tuned out everything the judge said after that, mind wandering to think about how fucking _odd_ it was for him to be referred to by his birth name, and even odder for him to hear Roadhog’s full, legal name. He tugged on the chains around his waist. The sooner he was sentenced, the sooner he could get the chains off, and the sooner he could figure out how to get back to way things were meant to be -- him and Roadhog living wild and carefree, spreading chaos and destruction wherever they went, enjoying life and evading capture. This was just a minor blip in the road.

He tuned back in to hear, "As I said at the outset, the mandatory sentence for the murder of a police office in the execution of the officer's duty, in order to escape apprehension for serious criminal conduct, is life imprisonment. This is because this crime is in the worst category of murder. An attack upon a serving officer of the law is an attack upon society itself. Your conduct was--” Junkrat resisted the urge to roll his eyes and went back to fiddling with his chains. Realistically, he knew all of this was true. But murder carried such little weight to Junkers; he’d been surrounded by a kill-or-be-killed survivalist mentality his entire life, and he didn’t understand why people should be excluded from this on the basis of the uniform they wore. If he had tried to detain someone in Junkertown, they absolutely would have killed him; why shouldn’t he do the same when the shoe was on the other foot? It didn’t compute. Morals were non-existent in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the Australian centre; you lived life your own way and said “fuck you” to anyone who tried to stop you from doing so. Junkers weren’t meant for proper society, and he hated having to adhere to societal rules.

His ears pricked back up at the sound of his name. “Jamison Fawkes and Mako Rutledge, for the murders of Sergeant Harris, Senior Constable Kelly, and Senior Constable Nguyen, I sentence you to life imprisonment. No minimum term of imprisonment before eligibility for parole is set. You are sentenced to be imprisoned for the remainders of your natural lives.”

 _Not if I have anything to say about it_ , Junkrat thought. He very nearly grinned but caught himself and attempted to look contrite instead.

“Remove the prisoners.”

A bailiff walked towards them to lead them from the courtroom. Junkrat could feel Roadhog’s eyes boring into the back of his head. He was evidently displeased with this outcome, as inevitable as it had been.

\---

Their sentence delivered, it wasn’t long before Junkrat and Roadhog were on their way to their assigned correctional facility. They were lucky enough to end up in the same prison, the only high security facility in the immediate area. Junkrat sat next to Roadhog in the back row of the bus, pleased that he could be with him outside of the courtroom now. Roadhog was not so cheerful.

“Aw, chin up, mate -- you and I both know we’re gonna bust out of here,” Junkrat said, low enough so the bus driver and the guard stationed at the front of the bus wouldn’t overhear. “S’only temporary.”

“Do you think this is some kind of game?” Roadhog growled. "You have no weapons. You're going to be by yourself in the same cell for 20 hours a day. How the hell are you going to accomplish that?"

"I'll think of somethin'! Ya really doubtin' me?"

Roadhog grumbled in assent. "Yes. Your last plan was shit."

Junkrat was crestfallen. "S'not _my_ fault the pigs showed up. I can do this, Roadhog, promise." He attempted to cross his heart with one finger, but his handcuffs protested with a clink, the chain around his waist preventing him from lifting them up far enough. "Got us into this mess, I'll get us out."

"You better."

Junkrat stared at his lap. He had been entirely confident in his ability to engineer an escape plan, but Roadhog's lack of faith in him was causing him to cast doubt as well.

The bus driver filled the ensuing silence. He impressed on them how lucky they were that Australia had abolished the death penalty. In his humble opinion, they were getting off easy with life imprisonment in maximum security. Junkrat did not give even a single fuck about his opinion.

The prison was an imposing structure: cinderblock and massive, electric chain link fences topped with spirals of razor wire. Junkrat, Roadhog, and the few other convicts on the bus were all led through the yawning prison doors, shuffling in their shackles.

Junkrat didn’t have a problem with other people seeing him naked, necessarily, but strip searches were _demeaning_. Especially when he had to remove his peg leg and mechanical arm so they could be searched for contraband or hidden weapons. He was immensely grateful when the strip search and processing was over and he was escorted to his cell.

“It’s your lucky day,” the correctional officer who was leading the way said. “We’re on a tight budget and doubling down on some cells in max. You get a cellmate who is just as violent as you. Congratulations!”

Junkrat perked up at that. “Roadhog?” he said hopefully.

“Thatcher.”

“Oh,” Junkrat said, his dejection evident.

The high security facility consisted of several cells circled around a central living area that was entirely deserted. All but one of the cells was occupied, and Junkrat hoped that if he couldn't get the last single cell, that Roadhog would. The man was big enough that he would not do well sharing a five by three meter cell with another person.

The guard stopped Junkrat outside one of the occupied cells. "Kneel down," he ordered. It was challenging when he was so heavily restricted by chains, but Junkrat obeyed. The guard removed the waist chain and the cuffs around his wrists -- he had gotten away with not having to wear ankle shackles, given that it was impossible to secure a cuff around his peg leg.

"Pop cell 21," the guard said into the radio clipped to his waist, and the door to his cell slid open with a drawn out, excruciating screech of metal. The guard's hand was on his belt, ready to whip out the pepper spray in case his cellmate had any funny ideas about trying to make a run for it. Junkrat was hauled to his feet and shoved into the cell.

"Welcome to your new home," the guard said with a nasty grin. "Better get used to it."

Junkrat massaged his wrists, sore from the too-tight handcuffs. "Will do." He would not get used to it; with any luck, he wouldn't be in here for more than a few months at most.

The door closed behind them with a clang that reverberated through his bones. Junkrat turned to his new cellie. "Thatcher, eh?"

Thatcher was an unkempt man with shaggy brown hair who wore the look of someone who had been in the system long enough to stop caring about appearances. He nodded, but his expression was suspicious, and he kept as much distance from Junkrat as possible, given the size of their cell. "You?"

"Junkrat." He put his hands on his hips and surveyed his surroundings. It wasn’t much to look at: a small square of solid concrete, a bunk bed, a dingy toilet, a "mirror" in which he could barely see his face, given that it was made out of dull metallic tin. Glass could very easily be weaponised.

"So here's the deal," his roommate was saying, and he forced himself to pay attention. "The bottom bunk is mine. The portable TV is mine, that corner by the bed is mine. You touch my stuff, you lose your other hand. Got it?"

Junkrat wanted to argue against the bed situation -- climbing onto the top bunk with a missing leg was going to be a challenge, to say the least. "Crystal clear," he said. If he was going to spend an indefinite amount of time cooped up with this guy, he should at least try not to tread on his toes. He nodded at the window of their cell door. “So, when do we get to go out there?” He had been filled in on the terms of life in the high security unit: 22 hours of isolation in their cell, one hour of recreation time, one hour in the exercise yard in small groups, and fifteen minutes to shower. He had been warned that this was his only chance for face to face social interaction with other inmates, and it could be revoked. Problem inmates spent their time out of their cell by themselves, under full supervision of a guard. At least it wasn’t supermax, Junkrat reasoned. There, he would have gotten zero social interaction whatsoever. He was fairly certain that it was only their immediate confession of guilt that kept them from being locked up in supermax off the bat.

Thatcher laughed, a harsh bark. “You missed it. You're gonna have to wait 'til tomorrow.”

Junkrat was dejected; he had been looking forward to seeing Roadhog and being able to freely communicate with him for the first time since their arrest. He was still going to try. He pressed flat against his cell door. 'Oi, Roadhog!” he shouted. “Roadhog! What cell are ya in?”

There was a pause, and he was momentarily concerned that Roadhog was still pissed off at him, or that he was too far down the line to be clearly heard. “Cell 23.”

Junkrat giggled and did a little dance of glee. Thatcher stared at him warily, clearly concerned about the caliber of roommate he had been assigned. “Brilliant, that's just what, two doors down? Look, we ain't gettin’ outta our cells today, but at least we can talk!”

“Over my dead body!” another inmate shouted from somewhere on Junkrat's left. “I'm already sick of hearing yer voice.”

Junkrat was about to angrily retort, but he heard the unmistakable sound of Roadhog's low laughter. Roadhog had definitely said the same thing to him before. He grinned, his anger forgotten. He still loved hearing Roadhog laugh. It had yet to stop being novel to him. “Yeah, sure, I'll oblige ya for now, but I can't make no promises for the future!”

“Fuck you!” the other inmate snarled back. “If you start yelling and giggling like that again, I swear to god I'll--”

“Take it,” Roadhog’s deep voice interrupted. “It's as good an offer as you're going to get from him.”

The other inmate audibly grumbled but dropped the line of argument.

“That's Maynard,” Thatcher explained. “You'll probably never have to deal with him in person. He’s lost just about all of his privileges. Fuckin’ idiot, if you ask me. We don't have half the privileges of gen pop -- you'd think he’d try not to jeopardise them.”

“Sounds like a dipstick to me,” Junkrat agreed. He eyed the portable TV that Thatcher had been referring to and the microwave on the only storage cabinet available. “So, ah, where’d ya get those?”

“Commissary,” Thatcher answered.

Junkrat perked up. “Any other electronics there?” This was good news; all of his idle thoughts about escaping from prison hinged on the manufacture of weapons, and if he could engineer some explosives, even better.

“Yeah. Get a list next time the screws come around, I don’t have time to explain everything to you.”

“Ain’t time the _only_ thing we have here?” Junkrat pointed out. Thatcher gave him a dirty look in response.

“Fine, maybe I just don’t _want_ to, then.”

“Eh, fair enough.”

It took a few tries, since his peg leg was a hindrance, but Junkrat hoisted himself into the top bunk. The mattress was poor by most standards, flat as a sandwich and not terribly comfortable, but it was more than he had in the Outback. The shabby blanket wasn't much better, frayed and made out of scratchy material. He picked at one of the loose threads and found that he could unravel it all the way down the length of the blanket. He oohed and pulled loose several more threads and began braiding them together, an inkling of an idea forming in his mind.

Thatcher, who had been laying on the concrete floor (“Bad back,” he explained) and reading a book, looked up at him suspiciously. “The shit are you doing?”

Junkrat shrugged and kept twisting the strands together. It was no explosive building, but it gave him something to do with his hands. He wasn't made for keeping still, needing something to keep his mind or body active. “Tryin’ somethin’ out. Do ya have a piece of paper and a pencil I can borrow?”

“If I did, why should I give them to you?”

It was a fair question. Nothing came free. Junkrat paused his braiding and considered it. “I'll give ya part of my dinner?”

“Deal.” Thatcher ripped the end pages out of his book and produced a small, dull pencil.

“Thanks, mate!” Junkrat finished off his braided line of string and hopped off the bed. He laid down on the ground and spread out the paper, gripping his newfound writing utensil in his left hand.

He began the painstaking process of writing out a letter: “Roadhog: Cellie says there's a commissary. Think we can find a way to make a withdrawal from our bank?”

He tied the note and the pencil to the end of his thin woven rope and crouched near the cell door. He cast out his homemade fishing line, swinging it in a wide arc. It took a few gos, with Roadhog directing him to go closer or father as necessary, but he was eventually able to send the parcel whizzing under the narrow slot of Roadhog's cell door.

He waited until he felt a tug at the line before carefully reeling it back in. On the back side of the page was Roadhog's reply, a bunch of numbers and letters that made no sense to him and the message: “Yes. Add Ava to your phone and visitor list.” It was brief, but there wasn’t much more that needed to be said in response. Everything else Junkrat wanted to communicate could wait until they saw each other in person the next day.

Junkrat clambered back onto his thin mattress and laid there, staring at Roadhog’s note. His handwriting was remarkably small and fine for someone with such huge hands.

He fell asleep with the piece of paper covering his face.


	14. Chapter 14

His first night in prison wasn’t a particularly restful one. He didn’t mind Thatcher’s snoring, used to the sounds of Roadhog’s mask at night. He  _ did _ mind being woken by the sound of another inmate screaming bloody murder, and half of the block yelling at the offender to shut up.

He hung his head off the edge of his bed to look at Thatcher upside-down. “Does that happen often?” he blearily asked.

“You get used to it.”

Junkrat groaned and flopped back down on his bed. He was exhausted by the time breakfast rolled around, two trays of unidentifiable brown slop labeled “oatmeal” pushed through the slot in their cell door. He asked the CO if he could get a commissary request form and was told, “Maybe, if I don’t have to print more out.”

He went back to bed. There wasn’t much else to do if he didn’t have anything to tinker around with, and Thatcher was loathe to relinquish his TV -- he  _ did _ offer his books, but Junkrat wasn’t the biggest fan of reading. It was difficult for him to keep the words in his head, and if it didn’t have to do with mechanical engineering, he wasn’t interested enough to put in the effort. His recreational enjoyment of books was limited to using them for target practice.   


He was beyond relieved when their recreational hour rolled around, and he was the first to sprint out when the cell doors slid open with a shout of “Roadhog!”

Maynard growled at him as he passed, and Junkrat lowered his voice. He’d gotten a good look at the prisoner who had taken an immediate dislike to him, as his solitary hour outside his cell was directly prior to that of the rest of the block. He’d opted to spend it watching TV, which he presumably didn’t have in his own cell due to revoked privileges, and four guards had marched him past Junkrat’s cell. Maynard looked like a man who belonged in prison, roughly Junkrat’s height but at least twice his weight in solid muscle, with a scarred face twisted in a permanent scowl. Junkrat made a mental note to try and stay on his good side.

His face lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw Roadhog. He liked to think that Roadhog was just as happy to see him and have the ability to talk unobstructed.

“They let ya keep yer gas mask!” Junkrat exclaimed, looking Roadhog up and down. He had shrugged off the upper half of his jumpsuit to reveal the white t-shirt underneath, tying the loose arms of the coveralls around his waist. The shirt rode up slightly around his belly, showing a sliver of his intricate tattoo.

“It’s for health purposes. I said I’d sue them if they took it from me. Still had to take it off to be searched, though.”

“Better than havin’ to take it off permanently, though,” Junkrat reasoned. “Oh, y’have no idea how happy I am to see ya, mate -- yer a good kinda bloke, not like the rest of these prison wankers.” 

This got the attention of some of the nearby prisoners, who bristled, but Junkrat was oblivious to them.

Roadhog exhaled, the sound wheezing through his gas mask. “Watch what you say around here. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t make yourself a target.”

“When have I ever done anything stupid?”

“You fired a grenade in a bottle-o.”

Junkrat paused. “Good point.” So maybe he didn’t always think things through before he did them. “Okay, I’ll watch me mouth.” They looked for a place to sit where they could talk freely. The TV area was taken over by the rest of the inmates, tensions high over who had control of the remote. While one prisoner was touting the merits of soap operas, another was making a strong case for the food network. 

They decided to steer clear of that particular shitshow and found a corner to loiter in outside of the entrance to the shower area. 

“Request to have Ava put on your list for phone calls and visitors,” Roadhog said when they were alone. “I am. But it doesn’t hurt to have backup. She can wire us our money.”

“Brill,” Junkrat said. “I need supplies, and Thatcher says there’s electronics in the commissary. Which, y’know me, is roight up my alley.”

“I know,” Roadhog said, a hint of a smirk in his voice. 

“Anyways,” Junkrat said. “How ya coping with solitary? I’m goin’ stir crazy bein’ locked up, and I have a cellmate! Don’t know how yer dealin’.”

“I’m used to it,” Roadhog replied. Junkrat’s first thought was  _ that’s sad, _ then  _ that’s me. _

“Well, not anymore! You and me, we had a pretty nice non-solitary thing going there. Too bad that got all stuffed up. I miss havin’ ya around, ya big lug.”

Roadhog didn’t echo the sentiment and simply said, “Whose fault is that?”

“Mine,” Junkrat admitted. “Shouldn’t’ve raided the bottle-o. Shouldn’t’ve let ya get caught. Shouldn’t’ve fucked up the rescue bit.”

“Shouldn’t’ve pleaded guilty.”

“That again? Come  _ on, _ ya know it was the roight thing to do! There were what, five eyewitnesses? Who were all cops. If we pleaded not guilty, it’d have been months of a trial that would have ended with us as lifers anyway.”

Roadhog sighed heavily. “You’re right.”

“I’m  _ always  _ roight!” 

Roadhog shoved him, and they were promptly reprimanded by the lingering CO for violent behavior.

Their hour together went by too fast, and Junkrat was disappointed to return back to his cell. He submitted the visitor request form the next time the CO came around and was informed that any phone calls he wanted to make would have to come out of his recreation hour. If he got his social privileges taken away, his phone privileges would similarly be revoked.

It was good motivation to behave.

Junkrat wasn’t sure what the exact timeline was for phone numbers being approved, but he hoped that within a few days, he and Roadhog would be able to call Ava and get some funds in their accounts. He didn’t know what, exactly, he would have access to in the commissary, but at least he could start dreaming up potential devices. He was skilled at working with salvaged parts; he could absolutely weaponise anything he could dismantle. He pulled out a handful of paper towels from the dispenser by their cell’s sink and used the blunt tip of his borrowed pencil to start sketching.

He was distracted by a scraping sound and looked up to find Thatcher working a brick out of the masonry of the wall. He took out a battered pack of cigarettes, which Junkrat was almost certain was not available in the commissary.

"What?" Thatcher said when he caught his eye, tone accusatory. "Don't go dobbing on me, or I’m gonna fucking well make you pay."

“What, ya think I’m gonna tell the screws?” Junkrat touched his heart, offended at the mere insinuation that he would snitch. “I’m no cobber dobber. I won’t if you don’t if I go doin’ anythin’ ‘illegal’ later.”

“Deal.” Thatcher slipped a cigarette into his pocket, put the package back into its hidey hole, and sealed the brick back up with a caulk of toothpaste mixed with supplement powder to avoid detection. 

That night, Junkrat woke up around 7:00 at the screeching sound of a cell door opening. Curious, he scrubbed the sleep from his eyes, strapped on his peg leg, and hopped out of bed. He pressed up against the window of their cell and watched as one of the inmates on their block, a meaty kind of man of average height, was escorted past.

“Where's he goin’?” Junkrat asked Thatcher.

Thatcher rolled over in his bunk. “Work. That lucky sonovabitch has a job, he gets to leave Mondays and Fridays to go to the workshop. He gets some privileges what the gen pop has, 'cause he's been here so long and has 'turned a new leaf.’” Thatcher’s tone was disdainful; he clearly didn’t believe that there was any possible way for a convicted felon, himself included, to turn over a new leaf.

At breakfast, Junkrat asked again about the phone list.

“Fer chrissakes, Fawkes, you gave it to me last night!”

“I know, but I need to call my mate and get cash in my account for the commissary! What, ya think I can survive off this shit yer feedin’ us?” Too late, he realised that it might not be the best idea to insult the food that the officer was handing him if he wanted his paperwork to be processed speedily. 

Luckily, the CO seemed aware that the prison-grade food was barely edible, but he didn’t find Junkrat’s tone endearing. “Watch your fucking tongue, Fawkes, you’re on thin ice. Commissary, phone calls? Privileges. Privileges you convicts are lucky to have with the things you’ve done.”

“Sorry,  _ sir," _ Junkrat said, placing extra emphasis on the syllable. He had intended it to be droll, but the sarcasm flew right over the officer’s head, who only heard the term of respect and used it to fuel his inflated ego.

“I’ll look at it today,” the CO said. 

Junkrat grinned. “Ta!”

He busied himself with drawing a map of what he remembered of the prison layout that he traversed through the previous day. Thatcher helped him fill in the blanks where his brain failed him.

"Been put in the slot more than once," he said. "I've got a pretty good idea." He pointed out the various guard stations, and Junkrat marked them with angry smiley faces. "What's the point of this, anyway?"

Junkrat shrugged. "S'just good to know." He evaded the question. "I like knowin' my surroundings."

Thatcher didn't press further. Junkrat had the impression that he just thought he was a weird kook with no explanation for half the things he did, which wasn't exactly an inaccurate assessment.

He could tell that they were nearing their recreation hour when one of the inmates at the end of the catwalk shouted, "Po-lice!" A handful of correctional officers used their IDs to buzz into the block and approached Maynard's cell.

"Alright, Maynard," one of the guards said. The footsteps stopped, the four officers standing outside of the cell with Maynard's shackles clinking in their hands. "Hands out. Let's get a move on."

Junkrat couldn't see exactly what happened from the view of his cell; he just knew that after Maynard’s cell door slid open, someone was yelling, "Shank! He's got a shank!" and there was a massive flurry of activity.

The block was split into factions: half of the inmates were shouting encouragement to Maynard and egging him on, while the rest of the inmates were quiet, trying to get a better look at what was happening.

“Why don’t they just shoot him?” Junkrat whispered to Thatcher.

“COs don’t carry firearms,” Thatcher replied. “There’s been too many incidents, it’s easy to get your hands on your CO’s gun if you try hard enough.”

Junkrat filed away this tidbit of information for later.

In a matter of minutes, Maynard was brutally subdued and restrained so tightly that he could barely walk, his shiv confiscated. "Take him to Seg," one of the COs instructed, reaching for his radio to report the disturbance. "See if there's a way we can get an opening in Supermax, I've had it up to here with this asshole. Fucking menace to us all."

A murmur of discontent rippled throughout the unit when the door to the block shut behind Maynard and the guards. "I was hoping he would have at least wounded one of them," Junkrat overheard one of the inmates saying.

"The bloody bastard goes to all the trouble of making a shank, then he can't even get a stab in? Fucking useless."

The staff seemed reluctant to give the rest of the block their recreational hour after the incident with Maynard, but they finally acquiesced after much complaining and wheedling from the various inmates who were itching to get out of the confined space they called home. It was possible that they were concerned about inciting a riot if they denied a group of tensed up convicts their daily routine. Junkrat and Roadhog wandered into the living area, where Junkrat flopped down on the worn sofa.

He was seated for all of two seconds before someone -- the man who screamed in the dead of night, Junkrat thought -- growled at him, "You're in my spot."

Junkrat quickly stood up, not wanting to cause another disturbance, but he couldn't help but point out, "How can it be  _ yer _ spot? This is communal, mate! I have just as much a roight to this couch as you do, and I'll be damned if I don't fight ya for it--"

Roadhog steered him away before he got too fired up. "Let it go. You’re rustling feathers."

Junkrat huffed and shrugged Roadhog's hand off his shoulder. "Fine. But I'm sitting on that couch tomorrow, mark my words." He found a seat at the chess table instead, which was missing too many pieces to be considered truly functional. Some of the remaining pieces were replaced by hunks of soap that had been carved by some illegal sharp object. You had to admire the ingenuity. "Anyways. Good lunch? I can't even tell what's meat or not, I dunno how yer copin' with it."

"It's hard. I miss making my own breakfast." Roadhog sighed.

"I miss me tire." Junkrat stared off into the distance, emotion welling up in his eyes. "I've  _ gotta _ get it back, Roadhog.

"We'll get you a new tire when we get out of here," Roadhog told him.

"No." Junkrat shook his head vigorously. "I need  _ that _ one!"

Roadhog exhaled, and Junkrat had the impression that he thought he was just being petulant. "Ya don't understand, mate! I got  _ things _ in there. Important things." He lowered his voice to a hush, so that Roadhog had to lean in to hear him. "Me treasure, Roadhog. It's in the tire."

Roadhog stared at him for a long, silent moment. "You kept your treasure," he finally said, "in your tire. That is a motorised bomb."

"Yeah!"

"Do you even  _ think _ before you do these things?"

"No," Junkrat admitted. "But it wasn't a bad idea! I always have it on me, so I'm not gonna lose it, like I could if I buried it somewhere. I get to guard it, and I'm the only one I can trust to keep it safe. Minus you," he added. "But really, yer keepin'  _ me _ safe, not the treasure."

"It was a stupid idea, and you couldn't keep it safe, because it's probably in an evidence locker somewhere now. How is it not destroyed yet?"

Junkrat tapped his temple. "That's the beauty of it, innit? Got it encased in an old mine, tucked away nice and tight and sealed with high grade rubber. I've tested it out and everythin'. The bomb doesn't blow up the tire, and I've taken protective measures with it. It's ingenious."

"Insane, more like. What  _ is  _ it?"

Junkrat waved the question away with one airy hand. "Details, details. It don't matter if I don't have it anyway. That's our first order of business when we get out. Get me tire back, then catch meself a nice dinner, because I can find better food than whoever cooks this shit."

When dinner was brought around, the CO who slid the tray of mystery meat and withered vegetables through the slot informed Junkrat that he had approved his phone list, it was processing through the director, and that he should be able to make a collect call within a day or two.

\---

Junkrat didn’t have the luxury of privacy when making his phone call. He made a beeline for the phone as soon as he received confirmation that he could make phone calls and was released from his cell for the recreation hour, but a guard stood by his side the whole while.

“Do ya really gotta stand here?” he asked after a message played informing him that  _ this call will be recorded.  _ “It’s not like I can hide anythin’ from you, this shit’s bein’ recorded.”

“Shut up and make your call,” the guard replied. "You have eight minutes."

"Ava!" Junkrat exclaimed when his call was picked up. "Oh, am I glad to hear yer voice, doc."

"Junkrat? I heard about you and Roadhog getting sentenced -- pretty stupid thing you guys did. How you holding up behind bars?"

Junkrat's eyes darted over to the correctional officer looming next to him. "Eh, can't complain. But listen, I wanna make use of this commissary they've got goin' on in here. My cellie won't share his TV, and I could use some basic creature comforts, y'know. Any way ya can wire over some cash to me? And Roadhog, I dunno if he'll be able to call ya, but I'm sure the big lug could use some commissary food."

"Yeah, I can't imagine he's doing too well on a prison diet," Ava mused. "I bet it's mostly meat based, isn't it?"

Junkrat laughed. "If ya can call it meat, yeah."

"Well hey, sure, I'll send you both some funds! I'll give the prison a ring, see how I can get that shit transferred to your accounts. And listen, I want to visit, if you have visitation rights."

Junkrat was touched. "Can't say it wouldn't be nice to have the company of someone who's not a convicted criminal. Give it a few weeks, let us get settled in, then swing by when ya get a chance?"

"Sure thing. Take it easy, Junkrat, and give Roadhog my best. Tell him to ring me when he can, yeah?"

"Gotcha." Junkrat hung up and turned to the guard. "There. Get yer jollies listening in?" He shook his head and slunk off to join Roadhog. "Ava says hi," he informed him. "She's gonna send us some cash soon as she can, says y'should call her."

There was a frown to Roadhog's voice. "I can't. Haven't been approved yet."

Junkrat's eyebrows shot up. "Really? That's a puzzler, I thought if I got mine processed, you'd have too. S'probably 'cause CO Smith moved the process along roight quick when I asked. He likes me."

"I can't imagine why."

"Oi! Watch it, I'm a fine specimen of nature, mate -- everyone likes me!"

"I don't," one of the inmates passing by said. "You're a real piece of work."

"Everyone except that bloke!" Junkrat said, modifying his answer. “And no one cares about his opinion!”

Roadhog shook his head. "This is why people don't like you."

"Ah, but you do, dontcha, 'Hog?" Junkrat elbowed Roadhog.

"Don't know why I do. I ask myself that question every day."

Junkrat grinned from ear to ear. All slights aside, Roadhog admitted to liking him, and that was all it took to make his day.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just two more chapters to go! We're nearing the end.

“Cells 14 through 21, hit the showers. Fawkes, that includes you,” said the disembodied voice over the speaker.

Junkrat grimaced. He had made it over a week and a half without showering, just washing up with paper towels in his cell sink, and it looked like the correctional officers had finally taken notice. If his last encounter with a shower was any indication, it was not going to go well. What was worse than the difficulty of washing up was how vulnerable he’d be in a prison shower with two missing limbs. Instead, he’d taken to hanging out in his cell and waiting for the brief five minute overlap between when Roadhog’s cell group was called and his was sent back to their cells, when he could briefly communicate with Roadhog.

He scowled the entire way to the shower area, taking his sweet time getting there. He picked the stall furthest away from everyone else, grateful that there were at least curtains to shield him in his limbless state. He shrugged off the upper half of his jumpsuit and detached his right arm.

Junkrat stood there, staring at the arm and contemplating whether or not someone would try to steal it if he left it outside the shower. It wasn’t like he had much of a choice, but he was still reluctant to do so. He wondered if he could get away with keeping his peg leg on and trying to hold it out of the spray…

“Well, well, look who finally decided to stop being a dirty freak and show his ass around here.”

Junkrat dropped his arm with a metallic clang and whipped his head up to see a group of three inmates approaching him, grinning like hyenas. He recognised one of them as the man with work privileges and another as the howler who took to screaming at night. “Oh -- heh -- hey...” He laughed nervously and took a step backwards into the shower stall. He immediately regretted it, because there was nowhere else for him to go once the three of them crowded around the entrance to the stall. “What can I do ya for?”

“If you're askin', you can start by not being so fuckin’ annoying,” the howler said.

Junkrat couldn’t help but giggle hysterically. " _Me_ _?_ I’m not the one screamin’ bloody murder in the middle of the night!”

One of the other two men frowned. “See, he can’t help that. You can control that obnoxious voice of yours.” Junkrat was pretty sure he’d found the only two inmates on their block who would defend the screamer.

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with me voice,” he protested weakly, falling back another step as the howler advanced on him. His back bumped against the knob of the shower.

“You say that, but you're not the one who has to listen to it.”

“You've been stirring up shit around here, Rat. You think you're so much better than the rest of us. Belmont, why dontcha teach him a lesson, we'll see if he's still singing that tune after this.”

Belmont, the inmate with work duty privileges, stepped forward. He was two or three inches shy of six feet, roughly Junkrat's height when he was hunched over in his usual slouch, but he was imposing. His very presence felt like a threat to Junkrat's well-being.

“Back off,” said a familiar, deep voice. “He's mine.” Roadhog grabbed Belmont and the howler by the backs of their prison uniforms and hauled them away from the entrance to the shower stall. The third man hastened to follow before he was forcibly removed as well. “Let me make something clear,” Roadhog snarled. “No one touches him. You mess with Junkrat, you mess with me. Understood?”

The offenders nodded, wide-eyed. Roadhog's stature and general bulk had a way of intimidating even the most hardened of felons. They slunk off, shooting dark looks over their shoulders.

Junkrat picked up his mechanical arm. “Thanks, mate. Woulda been fucked if ya hadn't shown up. But, ah -- I, I'm yours?” he said, raising his eyebrows at the choice of phrasing. And _oh,_ he hated that that thought gave him a weird flutter in the pit of his stomach.

“Just in name,” Roadhog replied. “They won't bother you if I have your back.“

Junkrat nodded and gave a sheepish grin. “Glad yer stuck in this shithole with me, then.” There was a reason he'd hired Roadhog as his enforcer, after all -- he might have been a scrapper who could hold his own in a fight, but he needed someone to watch out for him when it was a matter of being ganged up on or squaring off against someone who was out of his league. He reattached his prosthetic. If Roadhog had been let out of his cell, then there were seconds left until he had to be back in his cell. Besides, he'd soured to the idea of a shower after that encounter. Scrubbing himself down in the sink was good enough for him.

\---

The next day, Junkrat scanned the list of items offered by the commissary. If the available TV was the same as Thatcher's, it would be a small, old school flat screen that looked like it was from the 2020s. He could work with that. The radio would be even better though; it would give him batteries in addition to wires, and he would need the extras, given that he was limited to buying only two packs of D batteries at a time.

“Ooh _hoo,_ coffee creamer, I can definitely get some use outta that.” He put a tick next to the item on the list. “Gotta get some coffee to go with that, though, can't just get the creamer by itself.”

“Do you always talk to yourself?” Thatcher asked, shooting him a look of irritation.

“That’s a stupid question.” Junkrat tapped the pencil against his metal arm. “I’m gonna get Roadhog somethin’,” he decided. “Say thanks for savin’ my ass all the time. D’ya think he’d like almonds?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

“I’m gonna get him almonds. Everyone likes nuts.” He finished checking off the list and folded up the piece of paper to give to the CO the next time he made his rounds.

He was already brainstorming how best to use the material parts he would pilfer from the various electronics he was going to acquire. They would only go so far, though; if he was going to build a functional bomb, he would need illicit supplies that he couldn’t acquire through the commissary.

“Say, Thatcher, you smoke, right? I mean, I figured, what with the durries y’ve got stashed and all.”

Thatcher hissed, slicing a finger across his throat as a warning signal to shut up. “Could you _say_ that any louder?” He peered outside of the cell, but none of their neighbors were reacting. “You know what kinda shit I’d have to deal with if the rest of these assholes knew I was carrying? I wouldn’t get a moment’s piece. Probably get shanked by a smoker jonesing for a fix, so shut your fucking trap if you know what’s good for you.”

Junkrat held his hands up in surrender. “Just askin’! I wanted to know where ya get yer matches. Unless ya use a lighter?” He was very much hoping for the former, but he could make use of a lighter for alternative weapons

“Talk to Buzzard.”

Junkrat had no idea who Buzzard was. One of the inmates he had yet to interact with, most likely. “Buzzard?” he called out.

There was a moment’s silence, then a response. “What do you want?”

“I gotta talk to ya! What cell you in?”

“I know who you are.”

“We _all_ know who you are,” Maynard sullenly interjected from a few cells down.

“I’ll find you during rec,” Buzzard finished.

“Works for me,” Junkrat agreed, ignoring Maynard’s comment entirely.

Buzzard stayed true to his word and approached Junkrat during their recreational hour. Despite being able to put a face to his name, Junkrat still barely recognised him. He had the impression that Buzzard, who had to have been in his sixties or seventies, didn’t leave his cell much even when he had the opportunity. “What?” he asked, blunt and to the point.

“I heard you’ve got access to matches. What’s a bloke gotta do to get his hands on some of those?” Junkrat wiggled his fingers.

Buzzard hushed him and led him over to his cell. Across the room, Roadhog’s eyes tracked them, and it reassured Junkrat to know that he was watching in case things went south. Buzzard pulled a stack of yellowing paper from beneath his bed and spread them out on the mattress. Junkrat gave a low whistle and picked up one of the pages to get a better look at it. Buzzard was an artist, showcasing dozens of illustrations in pencil and watercolour. Nearly all of them were of nature, vivid pictures of sunsets and flowers and desert oases, everything that he likely hadn’t seen in decades.

“Colours,” Buzzard said. He popped the back off an old school radio with loose screws, showing Junkrat how its innards had been ripped out and stuffed with as many matchbooks as it could possibly fit. He’d clearly been hoarding them over the years, perhaps from back in the days where inmates were still allowed to purchase cigarettes and smoke. “Two matchbooks for a packet of Skittles,” he said, closing up the radio once more and securing it so it appeared to be tightly screwed together. “I dilute them with water to make my paints.”

Junkrat admired his ingenuity, sensing a kindred spirit in Buzzard. It took a special kind of person to find such creative uses for everyday items. “There’s somethin’ I can give ya.” He made a mental note to add Skittles to his list of requested commissary items before he turned the list in at dinner.

The final piece needed to construct his makeshift explosives would be considerably more difficult to get his hands on, and it required asking a favor of someone he was not terribly fond of. Junkrat made a beeline to Roadhog when he left Buzzard’s cell. “Listen, mate,” he said in a low voice. “I gotta talk to that bastard what tried to jump me in the showers. Watch my back, will ya?”

Roadhog grunted in agreement, folding his arms over his chest and watching like a hawk as Junkrat approached Belmont.

“Say, Belmont...” he said, inching within earshot but keeping an arm’s length away. “Gotta ask ya for a favor.”

Belmont, who had been reclining on the couch, took off his headphones. “It better be good if you’re taking me away from my soaps.”

Junkrat glanced at the TV. He couldn’t hear anything, the sound funneled through headphones so as not to start a volume war with the other inmates, but it looked dramatic. “Yeah, no, it’ll just take a sec! Y’work in a workshop, roight? Any chance you can _acquire_ a few pipes? Just like a plastic tube, don’t need nothin’ fancy.”

“What’s in it for me?”

This was the question Junkrat had been dreading. “Whaddya want?”

“A joint,” Belmont answered without hesitation.

Junkrat scratched the back of his had. “Well...” he said slowly. “Can’t get ya that. What about somethin’ else to smoke? I can get ya a pack of durries, easy. Might be a few missin’, but better than nothin’, eh? How many pipes’ll that get me?”

Belmont considered. “I’ll take it,” he said, slipping his headphones back on. “One pipe for every ten cigs. I’ll see what I can find tomorrow. Get me the goods by then. Now leave me the fuck alone, Anthony’s about to propose.”

Junkrat gave him a thumbs up and scurried back to Roadhog.

“You’re making friends,” Roadhog observed.

“More like business associates,” Junkrat amended. " _Acquaintances._ Gettin’ all my bombs in a row and all that.”

“What are you getting yourself into?” Roadhog warily asked.

“What makes ya think I’m gettin’ into anythin’?” Junkrat responded, offended.

“You always get into trouble.” It was more of an observation than anything else.

“Well, not this time. I’m gettin’ us _out_ of trouble this time. Gonna blow this place to kingdom come and get us the hell outta here.”

Roadhog glanced around them. “You _really_ need to be careful who you say that around.”

“I’ll be careful! Careful is me middle name.” They both enjoyed a hearty laugh at that, and Junkrat felt indescribably _good,_ the way he did every time Roadhog laughed _with_ him instead of _at_ him.

\---

Junkrat’s commissary processed the next day, and he giggled at the sight of his haul. “S’like Christmas in here!” He set aside the Skittles to swap with Buzzard and piled up the electronics in the corner by the toilet that Thatcher had designated for him, the implications of which did not escape his notice.

He waited until Thatcher left for his hour in the recreation yard before making his move. It took him a while to find the right brick, but he dug it out and pocketed the cigarettes before sealing it back up with the makeshift toothpaste grout. A closer look at it revealed that it was a 40 pack of cigarettes, with nine of them missing. He didn’t know when Thatcher had gotten his hands on the contraband, but he was clearly being economical with them.

Of all the goods he got from the commissary, the almonds had to be his favorite. He slipped them in his other pocket to deliver them to Roadhog during their recreation hour.

“I gotcha somethin’,” he told Roadhog when they met up by the chess set.

“Hm?”

Junkrat held up the bag of almonds. “To say thanks for havin’ my back.”

Roadhog chuckled and took the gift. “Thanks.”

Junkrat didn’t expect the heavy hand placed on his head, flattening his wild hair, but it made him glow with pride. “Ah, it’s nothin’!” He was mildly disappointed when Roadhog withdrew his hand, and he did his best to commit that sensation to memory. Roadhog so rarely touched him, but he craved those small moments of human contact. “Got some other things to deliver though, so I’ll be back in a tick.”

“You’re just handing out gifts left and right today.”

“Wha-- no!” he protested. “These ain’t gifts, they’re business transactions! You get the one and only gift, yer special.”

“I’m teasing,” Roadhog said gently.

“Oh. Well. Alright then.”

Junkrat traded Skittles for matches with Buzzard first and deposited the matchbooks inside his pillowcase for safekeeping. He tracked down Belmont, who brought him to his cell so they could make the transaction with some semblance of privacy.

“How many ya got?” he asked.

“Three. If you don’t got ten cigs, you’re not getting a single one of them, and I’ll be taking what you do have as payment for my trouble.”

Junkrat slapped the pack in Belmont’s hand. “Thirty two,” he said triumphantly. “I believe I’ll be takin’ all three of those pipes.”

Belmont weighed the pack in his hand before counting them to confirm Junkrat’s claim. “It’s thirty one, you idiot. You can’t count. But still, impressive,” he said. “Fine, a deal’s a deal.” He went to his cell and they completed the transfer, Belmont slipping him the short pieces of pipe he’d filched from the workshop. Junkrat shoved two in his pockets and the third down his pants to smuggle them back to his own cell.

He surveyed all of his goods and grinned, rubbing his hands together. " _Now_ we’re cookin’ with fire.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the penultimate chapter! The final chapter should be posted sometime on Monday night. I feel that I should warn you guys about this chapter, tho -- there is a scene that, while it is consensual, cannnn be read as dubcon so proceed with caution if that's something that disturbs you! (I promise it turns out fine, if that helps)

For the first time since arriving at prison, Junkrat felt at ease. Beginning work on his new bombs relaxed him. Home was where he could build explosives, after all.

He twisted off one of the metal fingers on his mechanical arm to expose the screwdriver beneath it. He’d added screwdriver heads to the last joints of his internal skeleton for added functionality, and it was proving incredibly useful when he was without his usual tools. He unscrewed the back of the radio and selected the wires that he would attach to one of his D batteries before screwing it back together. He went back to grinding the flammable powder off of the match heads. He’d converted the pipe into a container by fixing a scrap of blanket around one end with a piece of elastic from the wristband of his jumpsuit.

“Po-lice!” the block’s sentry shouted from his cell, and he hissed, stuffing his supplies in an empty cereal box. He really needed a better hiding spot, but hopefully he would be out of the joint before it became a necessity.

The footsteps of the correctional officer stopped outside his cell. “Fawkes! You’ve got a visitor.”

Confused, Junkrat turned to Thatcher, then pointed at his own chest. “What, me?”

“Who the fuck else? Is there anyone else by that name in this cell that I should know about? Hands out.”

The door to his cell slid open, and Junkrat dutifully let himself be shackled and led to the visiting room. It resembled a metal box, with a sheet of glass separating inmates from the visiting party. Ava was sitting at the desk that straddled both sides of the room. Junkrat sat down on his side and picked up the phone to speak with her through the glass.

“Doc? Why ya visitin’ me -- not that I’m complainin’, but I woulda thought you’d visit Roadhog first.”

“Yeah, I asked for him, but get this, they said I’m not on his list of approved visitors! I told them they could go stuff it, but they wouldn’t budge, so here I am.”

Junkrat blinked at her. “What, do they know the both of ya were in the Australian Liberation Front?”

Ava gave a delicate shrug. “Beats me. Either they have a bone to pick with him, or they know we have a shady history together and don’t want me seeing him. So I’m here to visit my good friend Junkrat instead! Thought you might want to talk to someone on the outside after, you know, losing everything you worked for.”

“Yeah, about that--” Junkrat started, then paused as Ava’s eyes darted upward. He followed her gaze to the security camera fixated on them. Ava tapped the side of her nose with her finger. Junkrat had no idea what the gesture signified. He carried on, being mindful of his words now that he realized that they were being recorded. “What they do with all my shit anyway?”

“Evidence, probably,” Ava said. “Last I heard, there was a big storage unit in their impound lot where they keep the big guns.”

“Impound lot?” Junkrat repeated. He’d never heard the term before in the Outback, but it sounded significant.

“Yeah, where they keep all the vehicles they confiscate from people like you.”

This got Junkrat’s attention. “So what, would Roadhog’s bike be there?”

“Probably.”

“So ya can’t take it then? Even though yer practically his next of kin and all.”

Ava’s eyes twinkled. “I would if I legally could, but the police wouldn’t like that. It doesn’t work that way and is, in fact, frowned upon in this establishment.”

Junkrat grinned at her through the glass barrier. “I see,” he said knowingly. If he was reading the room right, he had the impression that she would get it back for the two of them. “So if we were to ever get outta this shithole someday, we wouldn’t be able to get it back?”

“Probably not. But you’re in here for life, remember? I don’t think Judge Knowles would have mercy on you. So you’re just gonna have to get used to life on the inside without your bike. Sorry, pal.”

“Eh, I’ll get used to it. Maybe.”

They chatted idly about their life partners, both romantic and criminal, until the CO banged on the door and announced that their visitation time was almost up.

“So, when am I gonna see you again?” Ava propped her chin on her hand and winked. “Let’s talk plans.”

Junkrat considered the amount of time he needed to finish cobbling together his varied weapons. “Two weeks, maybe? Let’s aim for the thirtieth.”

“I’ll see you then.” Ava placed her hand on the glass, and Junkrat mirrored her. It was like they were shaking hands, sharing a secret plan.

It had been a good talk, but after the stress of trying to carefully communicate plans without being explicit, Junkrat needed a drink. The closest thing he had was coffee, so when he got back to his cell, he heated up some water in the microwave and made himself a mug of instant coffee, immediately followed by another, then one more for good measure. If he could finish the canister soon, he could make good use of it.

He was practically vibrating by the time their recreational hour rolled around. He’d had coffee maybe once or twice in his life, and he hadn’t realized how wonderful it was. Even this instant mess tasted delicious to him. Maybe when he got out, he’d get some _real_ coffee from a real place. He’d heard flat whites were top notch.

He bolted out of the cell when the doors slid open, full of jittery energy. “Roadhog!” he shouted when he caught sight of him. “My tubby friend!” He slung an arm around Roadhog’s waist and poked his tattoo. For the first time, Roadhog actually didn’t hit him as a result, a fact which delighted him. “Mate, I’m fuckin’ _wired_ , didya know coffee was so good? Y’ve been holdin’ out on me, I coulda been havin’ coffee at those fine dining establishments we went to on the outs!”

Roadhog looked down at him. “Who gave you coffee?”

Junkrat laughed and pointed at himself. “Me! I gave me coffee!”

“Can you also take it from you?”

“Now, why would I go and do a daft thing like that? I bought it, fair and square, I should get to drink it! I mean, I _had_ to buy it, it woulda been suss if I just got the creamer by itself. Didya know you can set coffee creamer on fire? All that powdered fat? _Massively_ flammable!”

“Lower your voice.” Roadhog shook his head. Junkrat continued nattering away about his grandiose plans until Roadhog finally interrupted, “How was Ava?”

Junkrat forced himself to stop grinning maniacally and sober up a little. “Good, best as I could tell. She wanted to see ya but they wouldn’t let her.”

Roadhog sighed. “I figured. They probably suspect she was my partner back in the day.”

Junkrat knew the term didn’t have to be romantic -- he’d quipped that his cellie was supposed to be his life partner -- but after hearing Ava refer to her wife as her partner, the phrasing piqued his curiosity. “What kinda partner?” he asked.

Roadhog tilted his head at him. “In crime,” he clarified, stating it as if it was perfectly obvious. “Neither of us could be interested in anything more.”

“Ah.” Junkrat considered the implications of this statement and found that he liked them. It made it easier for him to reconcile the thoughts he’d been having about his bodyguard. “Anyways, we talked about, ah, ‘plans...’” He crooked his fingers into quotation marks and elbowed Roadhog’s side. “In code!” he hastened to add when Roadhog’s chin jerked up.

“Neither of you are subtle people.” Roadhog groaned. “You are incapable of acting discreetly.”

“It’s _fine_ , really! We were careful, cross me heart.”

“Recreation hour is over,” a tinny voice rang out through the loudspeaker above them. “All inmates return to your cell for count.”

“I’ll fish ya a note about dates,” Junkrat rushed to tell Roadhog before they had to separate. “The thirtieth, I’ll write it all down!”

Junkrat returned to his cell and stood next to Thatcher while the CO made his rounds to ensure everyone was accounted for.

The cell doors closed. The CO who did the count left the block. The moment the thick metal door clicked shut behind the officer, Thatcher jumped on Junkrat.

Warning bells flared in Junkrat’s mind, and he automatically shouted, “Roadho--” before Thatcher clapped a hand over his mouth and wrestled him to the ground.

“Junkrat?” Roadhog sounded concerned, and there was an ominous rattle of a cell door.

“Tell him you’re fine, or I _will_ kill you right here, right now,” Thatcher hissed in Junkrat’s ear. The tip of a sharp piece of metal dug into his side, reinforcing the threat.

Junkrat swallowed. “S’nothin’,” he called out, forcing his voice to sound casual. “False alarm.”

Thatcher derisively patted his cheek, but it was more of a slap. “Good boy. Now… where the _fuck_ is it?” he snarled, grabbing a fistful of Junkrat’s hair and shoving his face into the floor.

“Wh-- where’s what?” Junkrat gasped. For once, he wasn’t being flippant, the fact that he had stolen something valuable from his cellmate had already left his mind.

Thatcher yanked his head up and cracked it against the concrete floor, and he saw stars. “Don’t play dumb with me, you piece of shit -- the cigarettes! You’re the only one who knew where they were!”

“Oh-- oh shit, those things. Listen, listen mate, I got a good explanation for that.” Thatcher pulled his head up off the ground, and Junkrat cowered with a wince and covered his head in anticipation.

“Explain.”

Junkrat’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “Okay, so I really needed some things from the workshop that I can’t get meself, for obvious reasons, so I had to pay for it. And I don’t have nothin’ worth those goods, but you did, and it was just sittin’ there unused, so...” Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a good explanation after all.

Thatcher’s grip on his hair tightened. “That’s it? _That’s_ your good explanation?”

“I, uh, heh… retract that statement.”

Thatcher exhaled, nostrils flaring. “So here’s the way I see it,” he said, his level voice brimming with barely contained rage. “There’s two options. Either I kill you, or you get me my cigarettes back and I _don’t_ pound you into a bloody pulp. Decisions, decisions. On the one hand, I get the satisfaction of snuffing out your worthless little thief life. On the other, I get my goddamn ciggies back.”

“Can I place a vote for the latter?” Junkrat tentatively suggested.

Thatcher pushed off of him with a violent shove. “One day,” he said ominously. “Get them back to me by tomorrow night, or you’re dead meat, Rat.”

Junkrat nodded furiously. “One day,” he echoed.

A note whipped under the door to their cell, attached to Roadhog’s fishing line. It presumably was Roadhog confirming that Junkrat was, in fact, fine, but he didn’t get a chance to read it and find out. Thatcher snapped it up before he could get to it and stuffed it in his mouth.

Junkrat watched as Thatcher chewed and swallowed, never taking his eyes off of him. He shivered. He’d eaten a _lot_ of questionable things in his life, but he’d yet to taste paper.

He made a mental note never to fuck with Thatcher or his belongings again.

\---

“Are you okay?” was the first thing Roadhog said the next day during their social hour.

“Yeah, yeah, m’fine,” Junkrat muttered, brushing away the concern. His eyes flitted around the room in search of Belmont; he only had one hour to retrieve the stolen cigarettes, and he couldn’t waste it talking to Roadhog, as much as he would’ve liked to. “Just a lil’ spat between cellies, nothin’ happened.”

Roadhog looked him up and down. “Well, you don’t look hurt,” he finally said.

“Toldya I was fine.” Junkrat finally spotted Belmont slipping into the shower area. “Listen, I’ll be back in a jiff, gotta go talk to this bloke for a sec.”

Junkrat made a beeline for the showers. Belmont was in the back of the room, running the shower at full blast and filling the room with steam that made sweat trickle down the back of Junkrat’s neck. The crinkled black pack was in his hand, and he tapped out one of the cigarettes.

Junkrat took a deep breath and sidled up to Belmont. "Hey, Belmont... y'know those durries I gave ya?” He nodded at the pack. “Y'haven't smoked 'em all yet, have ya?"

Belmont looked up at him. "Why you asking?"

Junkrat grimaced. "I'm gonna be needin' 'em back." He anxiously twisted the fabric of his jumpsuit while Belmont stared at him for several long, suspicious moments.

"A deal's a deal," he said. "I don't have any use for those pipes I gave you, so I'm not trading back, if that's what you're on about."

"Well, good, 'cause I wasn't plannin' on givin' back the pipes either."

Belmont narrowed his eyes at him. "Let me get this straight. You want the cigs back. But you're not willing to give me anything in exchange, not even a useless piece of pipe? Why the fuck should I make that deal?"

It was a good point. "Come on, I'll give ya _somethin'_ if ya swap back, honest."

Belmont folded his arms across his chest. "What's on the table?"

Junkrat struggled to think of something that he was willing to part with that he wasn't planning on using as a weapon. "I've got some extra wires, I can rig ya up a lighter?"

The look Belmont gave him was positively contemptuous. "What fuckin' good is a lighter if I have no cigs to light up?"

Junkrat bit his lip. "Fair point. Whaddya want, then? Gimme some suggestions."

A slow smile spread across Belmont's face, and that should have been Junkrat's clue to back out before things got ugly. "I can think of one way you can pay me back."

"Yeah, sure, anything!" Junkrat said, relieved.

Belmont began unbuttoning his jumpsuit.

_Oh, no._

“On your knees, Fawkes.”

“ _Junkrat._ ” He didn't know what it said about him that his first objection was to not being called the proper name, but his second objection was hot on its heels. “Wait, ya don't mean--”

“I _mean_ , you talk too much, and I'm _kindly_ requesting you put that big mouth to better use.”

Junkrat wet his lips, his brain rapidly cycling through his options. No matter how he swung it, it looked like it came down to the same thing: either give head or get his head bashed in by his cellmate. “Fine,” he finally agreed. “But I won’t be happy about it.”

“I don’t care whether you’re happy about it, I just care about you doing it. Like I said: on your knees.”

Junkrat grumbled, but he obeyed and knelt down in front of Belmont. He fumbled uncertainly with the jumpsuit before tentatively taking his head between his lips. He closed his eyes as he bobbed up and down. Maybe it would be better if he could imagine it was somebody else.

Junkrat held out his palm to request payment and was grateful when he felt the cigarette pack pressed into his hand. He was less pleased when Belmont gripped the back of his head and forced him down, keeping him from pulling away now that he had gotten what he wanted. Caught off guard, Junkrat gagged a little.

He was trying to relax when Belmont came, shooting down his throat, and all he could think was _Thank god_ , because it meant he could stop degrading himself.

All at once, Junkrat was shoved aside, and Belmont was pinned against the shower wall by one massive hand.

“What did I _say_?” Roadhog growled, and the abject anger in his voice frightened even Junkrat -- the only other time that he’d heard such rage from Roadhog was in the bottle shop, when he’d made the offhand comment about “fire never hurting anyone.”

“He-- he’s yours, I know! But he agreed!” Belmont gasped, trying to cover himself back up, as if he was afraid Roadhog would cut off some of the more sensitive parts of his anatomy. “He said yes, I didn’t make him to do anything!”

Roadhog didn’t let go. He simply turned his head to look at Junkrat, whose stomach plummeted. From his position on the floor, Roadhog looked bigger and scarier than ever, but it wasn’t his imposing figure that filled Junkrat with fear, but the knowledge that Roadhog thought he _wanted_ this. Of all the compromising positions for Roadhog to catch him in, having a near-stranger’s cock down his throat was the worst.

"...Yes," he admitted, voice unnaturally small and quiet. He didn't know why he had told the truth, that he _had_ consented, when he could have lied to save face in front of Roadhog and get Belmont permanently out of the picture. There was just something about Roadhog that made him want to be honest for once in his life, even when it meant confessing to whatever awful thing he had done.

Roadhog released Belmont and started walking away. Seized by panic, Junkrat scrambled to his feet and chased after him, cigarettes in hand. "Wait, Roadhog! I didn't-- I mean, I _did_ say yes, but I didn't _want_ it, promise--"

"I don't care what you do with other people," Roadhog said levelly. "It's none of my business. Just tell me next time before I try to kill someone for taking advantage of you."

"There won't be a next time! Roadhog, it was just -- it was a business thing, see--"

The familiar, disembodied voice crackled over the loudspeaker. "Recreation hour is over. All inmates return to your cells for count."

Junkrat didn't budge. He touched Roadhog's arm. "Mate, ya gotta believe me, I didn't go askin' for this--"

"Get back to your cell before the CO catches you." Roadhog pulled his arm away from him and headed back to Cell 23. Junkrat watched him go, helpless and despondent and filled with self-loathing like he'd never felt before.

The door that separated their unit from the main prison hallway beeped. Jolted back into reality, he hurried back to his cell before two COs stepped through. Junkrat tossed the cigarettes at Thatcher, who stuffed them beneath his mattress. They stood at attention, backs rigid, as the correctional officer walked past each cell and counted everyone, his partner at the ready in case any prisoners had any funny ideas about attacking them.

“All clear!” The CO shouted, and the doors to the cells slid shut with a resounding clang.

The minute the two officers left, Junkrat dove for his pencil and paper.

Thatcher dug the cigarettes out from under his mattress and scooped out his brick hidey hole. “Good. Don’t _ever_ even _think_ about stealing from me again, understood?”

"Yeah, 'course," Junkrat muttered, distracted. He tapped the pencil against the floor as he tried to figure out how to word his letter to Roadhog. He was acutely distressed; he _needed_ Roadhog to know that he had no feelings, sexual or otherwise, for Belmont, and that he wasn't the kind of person who would suck dick for no reason.

"Roadhog," he wrote. "Mate. Listen, here's the deal. I've been getting some weapon parts, ya know how it is. And I’m making some bombs, see? But I needed some pipes. Don’t got nothing worth trading, so I did a stupid thing and traded Thatcher’s ciggies to Belmont. He didn't take kindly to that, so I had to get em back from Belmont. Which meant sucking his dick. I swear, I only did it cuz I don't want Thatcher to kill me. The only d--" He scribbled out that phrase before it got too far, because _wow_ , that was certainly a thought he was experiencing, that the only dick he'd want to suck would be Roadhog's. He rubbed his face with his hands. What was _happening_ to him?

"It don't mean nothing, honest. I'm not the kinda bloke what goes around blowing people all the time. I mean, you know me. He ain't me type, he's too small. I told ya I like em big, right? Pretty sure I did, but me memory ain't the best." He gnawed on the end of his pencil, worried about how best to proceed. "Thanks for sticking up for me. Ya always got my back. Don't be mad at me, yeah?" He didn't know if that last bit sounded desperate or not, but frankly, he _was_ a little desperate. He couldn't handle the thought of Roadhog judging him.

"P.S." he added, "Destroy this letter. Flush it or eat it or something. That's a thing hogs do, right?" He gave a small, guilty giggle. He was trying to bring some levity to the mood, but it was a serious request, there was far too much incriminating information in his note.

He looked over the letter. It was probably riddled with spelling errors, as the only words he was 100% sure he knew how to spell correctly were the ones he learned from assembly manuals, which were how he taught himself how to read in the first place. Still, Roadhog was sure to get the gist of it. He tied the note to his fishing line and cast it over to Roadhog's cell. He couldn't feel anything for a long moment, and he tried waggling the string in case Roadhog hadn't noticed it. He was about ready to reel it back in, crestfallen, when he finally felt the note being detached. He waited anxiously for Roadhog to read it and, with any luck, reply. When he felt a tug on his string, he pulled it back through the narrow space of his cell door.

"You're an idiot,” Junkrat read. “That’s _it_?” he called out. He'd come to realise that Roadhog calling him an idiot was more often than not a term of endearment. Once upon a time, it had been a proper insult, but as of late, there was more affection to malice in his voice every time he called Junkrat an idiot. Still, it didn’t sufficiently answer whether Roadhog was angry over the whole incident.

“Turn the paper over,” Roadhog replied from two cells down.

Junkrat flipped the page over. “But I'm not mad." He exhaled in relief. He was glad he hadn't irreparably fucked things up with Roadhog, and that he -- hopefully -- wasn't being judged for going along with Belmont's terms of payment. There was still the pressing matter of the fact that he had nearly expressed a desire to blow Roadhog, but that was a thought that he would deal with some other time, because _that_ was a tangle of emotions that he was not prepared to sort through.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, everyone, the final chapter of the fic! I’m posting this on my lunch break at work bc I’m so excited to share it with you all, aha. I hope you enjoy it! (Also, a reference image for this first paragraph: http://jabberwockyx.tumblr.com/post/153064161387/i-love-all-of-junkrats-drawings-and-his-awful)

Junkrat drew a dotted line on the map Thatcher had helped him sketch several weeks ago, punctuated with a giant circle around the word “FREEDUM!” He flipped the paper towel over and wrote a message that, the occasional spelling error aside, explained the essence of the strategy. “Okay, so that’s you in the lounge,” he said, referring to the several circles that formed a crude depiction of Roadhog’s pig mask, topped with a tuft of hair. “And me by the door,” he added, in reference to the inverted triangle of his face and the three spikes that represented his hair. “Do whatcha gotta do and get the bloody hell over to me, okay?”

Roadhog’s response was a drawing of his own, a simple thumbs up. Junkrat grinned at the picture. He’d made the right choice in picking Roadhog for his bodyguard.

Junkrat pocketed the note and finished assembling the last of his bombs, hooking two electrical wires to a tube filled with flammable match head powder on one end and a D-sized battery on the other. In order to properly execute the plan, he needed to steal one last thing from Thatcher, and he waited until the last second possible to do so out of sheer self-preservation.

Once Thatcher left the cell for their recreational hour, Junkrat lunged for one of his books, a sizeable hardcover. He pulled out a razor blade that he had welded to the end of a plastic comb. Prisoners were only allowed to shave in the presence of a guard, but Roadhog had managed to slip out some blades undetected. He was endlessly grateful that he had the man on his side, because he had no personal way to acquire a razor, given his radiation-induced hair growth issues. The COs were stingy about granting razor access to maximum-security prisoners, but Roadhog was given special permission, as facial hair prevented his gas mask from sealing properly.

Junkrat hollowed out the book, using the razor to slice a hole in the pages, and planted his largest and greatest bomb in the center of it. He attached a pair of wires to the cover of the book, rigging it so that it would detonate upon opening. As much as he liked being the one to blow someone to kingdom come, there was something to be said for the power of a victim actuated device.

Satisfied with its construction, he stuffed his pockets full of the rest of his innovated weapons, clutched the book to his chest, and left the cell.

Across the room, he could see Roadhog in position in the living area, stationed by the TV. Junkrat nodded at him and made his way to his spot several feet away from the door that linked their wing to the rest of the prison.

Junkrat didn't know how, exactly, Roadhog disturbed the peace and instigated the riot, but there was a sudden explosion of activity. A booming voice came on over the loudspeaker, ordering all the inmates to quiet down and return to their cells, but the pandemonium was in full force and no one obeyed.

A team of officers stormed into the block, clad in flak jackets and helmets. Junkrat inched closer to the door, book held tight in front of him. One of the guards slowed down and eyed him.

“What’ve you got there, Fawkes?”

Junkrat jumped at being directly addressed. “N-Nothin’!” he said, just a little too quickly to be honest. “Just a book, that’s all.” His natural twitchiness helped make his feigned nervousness more convincing. _Who’s incapable of keeping up an act now?_ he thought, making a mental note to throw the savage comment in Roadhog’s face later.

“Oh yeah? Then you won’t mind handing it over so I can take a look at it.”

“No!”

The officer reached for his hip. “Hand it over _now_ , Fawkes.”

Junkrat begrudgingly held out the book and glanced over to the commotion of inmates and officers. Roadhog had side-skirted the whole mess and was heading his way. The CO snatched the book away from him, and Junkrat skittered to Roadhog’s side as he opened the book.

The bomb detonated with a glorious _bang_ , and the guard screamed, the sound lost in the din of shouting and fighting that filled the block. One second his hand was there, holding the cover of the book, and the next second it wasn’t. He stumbled back and fell flat on his ass, unable to take his eyes off the bloody stump of his hand. It filled Junkrat with a vindictive kind of glee to know that he wasn’t the only poor asshole with a missing hand in the room.

Junkrat snatched his identification card from where it was clipped to his belt. “I’ll be takin’ that! Roadhog, why dontcha... _give him a hand_?” He couldn’t stop himself from picking up the severed hand and waving it.

“Stop that.” Roadhog’s idea of giving the man a hand was to reach down and snap his neck before he tried to detain them from leaving, hand or no hand.

Junkrat used the identification card to buzz them out of the room before the rest of the officers who were struggling to contain the rioting prisoners noticed that they were down a man. He pulled out one of the pipes he had acquired from Belmont and filled with powdered coffee creamer.

They took off down the hall. “Hold this a sec,” he told Roadhog, passing him the pipe and plunging his hand back into his pocket in search of his matchbook.

“Oi!” came a shout as they rounded the corner, two guards coming their way. Junkrat had anticipated their presence, thanks to the map he had drawn with Thatcher’s help and marked with angry faces. He’d spent hours poring over his sketchy layout, trying to find an alternative route where their paths wouldn’t cross with stationed guards, but there was none. He decided it didn’t matter; as long as they had the appropriate weapons, they could plow their way through the defenses.

Junkrat struck a match and took the pipe back from Roadhog. He held the flame at the the pipe’s entrance and tipped it horizontally so the contents slowly trickled out. As soon as the powder touched the burning match, it ignited, and pulling the match away created a long stream of fire aimed directly at the security guards that were rushing towards them.

“If ya can’t stand the heat, stay outta my face!” he shouted over the screams of the burned. He was economical with his use of the coffee creamer, making his macgyvered flamethrower last as long as possible before dropping the spent device.

They weren’t out of the proverbial woods yet. Roadhog shanked anyone who got too close to them with the improvised weapons he’d made out of stolen razor blades and sharpened toothbrushes while Junkrat caused as much destruction as possible to slow down anyone who had the guts to come after them.

“Incoming!” He lit his last bomb and tossed it to clear a path to the main doors.

They burst outside, the doors to the prison slamming against the brick wall, and bolted for the exit. The correctional officers may not have carried guns on their person, but the guards in the watchtowers outside sure as hell did. Junkrat’s nerves got the best of him, his unhinged laughter a product of alarm as they swerved to avoid being shot. A spasmodically moving target was much harder to hit than a predictable one, and Junkrat was the master of erratic behavior. Roadhog stuck directly behind him as they ran, a living human shield in case any errant bullets got too close.

Much to their relief, Roadhog’s bike was idling outside the prison, Ava lounging in the familiar beat-up yellow sidecar. At least, Junkrat assumed it was Ava, as the woman was wearing a full face, tinted visor helmet that covered her distinguishing mass of dense curls.

She straightened up once she saw the two of them barreling straight towards her, giving Junkrat the space he needed to leap into the sidecar next to her. “Long time no see!” she said as Roadhog mounted the bike and they tore away from the prison. She raised her voice to be heard of the revving motor. “Junkrat, Roadhog, you're looking good. I’ll admit, I had my doubts -- how the bloody _hell_ did you escape a maximum security prison?”

“Bombs and fire!”

“Ah, I see, the usual way, then.”

“We’ll explain back at your house,” Roadhog said, accelerating just a little faster. Junkrat’s eyes watered; he was suddenly jealous of Ava’s helmet and Roadhog’s mask, both of which protected their eyes from the sting of air whooshing by.

“Wait!” he shouted over the loud rush of wind. “We gotta go to the impound lot first!”

“Are you kidding me?” Ava yelled back. “After I broke in there and nicked the bike -- no way!”

“Please,” Junkrat begged. He glanced over at Roadhog, eyes pleading. “Come on, Roadhog, I _need_ my tire!”

Roadhog shifted gears. “Which way, Ava?”

Ava groaned, but she directed them to the lot and handed over a pair of bolt cutters. “I had planned on cutting through the fence, but it was easier to just scale it.”

It wasn’t quite as easy for Junkrat to climb the fence, as his peg leg poked through the holes in the chain link, so he cut his way through while Roadhog and Ava stood lookout.

There was a guard tower in the impound lot, and Junkrat hid as he tried to figure out how best to navigate to the large storage container. He was close to just giving up and making a run for it, because all the routes he saw seemed to be in clear view of the tower. Just as he was about to head back to the motorcycle to regroup and figure out another strategy, he heard the clanging of a gate on the far end of the impound loud and a very convincing barking noise.

 _Ava_. Junkrat grinned. He waited for the guard to leave the tower to investigate the source of the disturbance before dashing towards the evidence locker. He used the bolt cutters to break the heavy duty padlock ( _stupid_ , he thought to himself, they really needed to get with the times and beef up their security -- but then again, it wasn’t a particularly high crime town) and slipped inside, swinging the door shut behind him.

After a moment’s thought, he opened it again, just a crack. He needed the light to figure out what the hell belonged to him. It wasn’t that he had scruples about not stealing the belongings of other criminals; it was more a matter of being economical, and his and Roadhog’s loot was top priority.

Luckily, their stuff wasn’t exactly easy to miss. Subtlety was not their strong point. He caught sight of a familiar looking spike and the bright yellow of Roadhog’s shoulder pad, and he made a beeline for the boxes of evidence labeled “Fawkes & Rutledge,” with their case number below it.

Junkrat pulled out his RIP-tire first. He cackled and planted a smooch on the rubber, heedless of the dirt caked onto it. The joy was overwhelming, and not just because of the treasure the tire contained. It had been a staple of his arsenal of weapons for so long, and he had felt naked without it on his person. He wrapped his arms between the spikes to hug it tight to his chest. “I’ve gotcha!”

He strapped the tire to his back and grabbed everything else he could carry -- Roadhog’s harness, which threatened to slip off his shoulders, it was so comically large on him; the piggy-faced duffle bag that carried Roadhog’s hogdrogen, Junkrat’s mines, and what remained of their hard-earned cash; his own harness and its grenade cans slung over his other arm. After a moment’s thought, he searched the container until he pulled out a handful of rings, the ones Roadhog had retrieved from Riptide all those months ago. He stashed them in the deepest corner of the duffle bag.

“Junkrat!” Ava’s voice, high and piercing, called out. Junkrat’s head whipped up. If Ava was yelling, there was no point in pretending to be unobtrusive. He hiked up everything he was carrying and charged out the door, slamming it open. The security guard had been dangerously close to the evidence locker and took off after him, hot on his heels and cursing him out.

Junkrat plunged his hand into the pink duffle bag and fished out one of his mines and the detonator. He jumbled things around so he could properly access the detonator and dropped the mine. He jumped and pressed the button, the force of the explosion catapulting him through the air and knocking the guard off his feet.

“‘Hog, look, I’m flying!” he shouted as he soared through the air. He landed on the ground hard, stumbling a little, and finished the mad dash to the motorcycle.

Ava grabbed his hand and swung him onboard, and they peeled off with a victory cry.

“Is there hogdrogen in there?” Roadhog asked, sparing a glance at the duffle bag.

“You know it,” Junkrat answered. “Need a can?” He pulled one out and passed it over to Roadhog, who huffed it and tossed it to the ground.

“Oh, good,” Ava said. “You can add littering to your list of crimes now too!”

\---

It was dusk by the time they arrived at Ava’s house.

“You can’t stay here long,” Ava said after they covered Roadhog’s bike with a black tarp. “They’re bound to realize who your little accomplice was, the glorious me, and they’ll come knocking. But you can stay here the night at least.

Rosa fussed over all of them like a mother hen, clucking about how they had

to get out of the prison stripes before they left. There was the pressing matter of where they would acquire replacement clothes, but she promised to go into town and look for something on their behalf first thing in the morning.

“Hang on, Roadhog,” she said suddenly, standing on her tiptoes and balancing against him to inspect his arm. “You’re bleeding… is that a _bullet_?”

Junkrat’s blood ran cold. “Wait, wait, what? Roadhog -- y-yer shot?” His mind ran a mile a minute. People _died_ from being shot, no matter how big and tough they were, and Roadhog had gone untreated for several hours, that couldn’t possibly be good. His traitorous brain supplied him with an image of Roadhog, dead, and the panic began to set in. “No, no, that can’t be a fucking _bullet_ \--” He crossed over to Roadhog’s other side to examine for himself and -- nope, nope, that was definitely a bullet wound. “ _Shit_ , why the fuck didn’t ya _say_ something?”

He should have known. He shouldn’t have needed to been told. He should’ve seen how Roadhog was favoring his left arm, paid more attention to why he immediately reached for the hogdrogen. Guilt wasn’t an emotion he was accustomed to feeling, but it was sinking in heavily.

“Junkrat,” Roadhog said, voice gentle. “I’m fine.”

“Yer not fuckin’ fine, there’s a bloody bullet in yer arm, don’t talk to me about bein’ fine!” Junkrat’s hands twisted in his hair, upset and frustrated and utterly shaken.

“I’m still standing.”

Junkrat slowly unclenched his fists. “Well, yeah, but that’s just -- adrenaline is a helluva motivator.”

“Adrenaline and sheer determination to live,” Ava amended. “I’ve seen men half Roadhog’s size get shot and still remain a threat. It’ll take more than a bullet to incapacitate our man over here.” She located a handheld x-ray and examined him while Rosa and Junkrat fretted.

“Well?” Junkrat demanded. He drummed his fingers against his thigh, taut with nervous energy. “You gonna get it out or what?” He peeked over Ava’s shoulder, trying to gauge for himself how bad it was.

“Oi, give me a minute, stickybeak, I’m assessing.” Ava pushed him away, peering at the wound through her device. “You’re lucky,” she finally said. “It didn’t hit any major arteries and is pretty firmly lodged in there. Honestly? I say leave it in.”

Junkrat did not like the sound of a bullet remaining in his bodyguard. “Whoa, whoa, doc, y’sure that’s a good idea?”

“Hey, who’s the one with a medical degree here? You might be Dr. Boom, but I’m Dr. Bones, and I know my shit. Removing a foreign object like that would just do more harm than good and could cause localized nerve damage. If it’s not going to migrate -- and I don’t think it will -- or impede your range of motion, then it’s not worth removing. It’s not a radioactive slug or anything. You’ll be fine,” she reassured Roadhog, but Junkrat felt like he needed the reassurance more, since Roadhog was acting remarkably unperturbed. “Just let me dress it for you and get you some antibiotics and painkillers, and you tell me if anything shifts or starts acting funky, ‘kay?”

Junkrat hovered around Roadhog and Ava as she sterilized the wound and patched him up. He only left when Ava, clearly fed up by his constant presence and incessant questioning of everything she did, sent him to get some water for Roadhog’s painkillers.

He waited until they were alone to properly address Roadhog again.

“Hey… I'm sorry,” he said, doing his best to sound as contrite as he felt. Ava and Rosa had gone to bed, having set them up with their sleeping bags on the living room floor once more. With all the blackout curtains drawn, he couldn’t see anything, and he was glad that Roadhog couldn’t see him clearly either, as he fidgeted with his fingers. That moment where he had seen a future without Roadhog in it had put his feelings for him in stark relief.

He heard the pillow sigh as Roadhog shifted his head to look at him. “For what?”

“For lettin’ ya get shot. You wouldn’t’ve if you hadn’t been bein’ my shield.”

“It’s my job.”

“Well, I don’t like this job anymore if it’s gettin’ ya hurt!” Junkrat said, voice heated. Roadhog shushed him, and he remembered that Ava and Rosa were sleeping nearby. “Y’don’t have to be my bodyguard anymore. It was a stupid idea anyway.”

“I want to be,” Roadhog answered simply. “You need the protection.”

“I can take care of meself! I did it before you came along, I can keep on doing it.”

“You weren’t as big of a target before you hired me,” Roadhog reminded him. “And I meant it: I want to.”

Junkrat sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Yer too good to me, y’know that?”

Roadhog blindly reached out in the darkness and clumsily patted his hand. “Go to sleep.”

“Ahh, okay. G’night.” Junkrat tried, but he couldn’t fall asleep, brain still far too active. He just kept thinking about who he was laying next to.

He hadn't understood how much he'd missed sleeping next to Roadhog until he was by his side once more. He'd missed the soothing sound of his deep breathing, the way he could feel his body heat radiating off of him, the tingling sensation he felt when he held his arm a hair's breadth away from Roadhog's. It was comforting, natural, just plain _right_.

It made him realize just how much he wanted to keep on sleeping next to him for the rest of his life, or better yet, on him.

Junkrat rolled over onto his side. He could barely make out the outline of the massive form next to him. “Roadhog? Roadhog, mate, I got somethin’ to tell ya. You awake?”

Roadhog grunted. “Yeah?”

Junkrat wet his lips. He was in the thick of it now, there was no backing out. “Listen, we’ve been havin’ a good thing together, yeah? And I was just wonderin’, maybe it’s time we, ah...” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Shit, I dunno how to say this without making an arse of myself.”

“Call it off,” Roadhog supplied.

Junkrat startled. “What? Why wouldya even say that?”

“People can outlive their usefulness.”

“No no no, y’ve got it all backwards, mate. I want whatever the opposite of that is! I _like_ you, ya big lug! I mean, I’d kiss ya if you weren’t wearing that stupid mask.”

There was a long moment of silence, and Junkrat was beginning to regret voicing his thoughts at all. “Y’don’t have to say anythin’ if ya don’t feel the same, just thought I’d--”

He broke off mid-sentence when Roadhog suddenly sat up. There was a rustling sound, then he jolted as lips pressed against his own. Junkrat pulled away to look at Roadhog, surprised and overjoyed, but it was hard to make out much of anything in the pitch black room.

"Did... didya mean to just kiss me like that?" he asked, needing the clarification before he let the giddiness consume him entirely.

"No," Roadhog deadpanned. "I accidentally pushed up my mask and accidentally punched you in the mouth with my lips. What do you _think_?"

"That no one's ever just _kissed_ me like that before! Can't blame me for wantin' to make sure."

Roadhog's thumb brushed against his cheek. "You wanted it," he answered simply.

"Yeah, yeah I did!" He was about to steal another kiss when a thought occurred to him, and he shoved a hand in Roadhog's face. "Wait just a tick. Y'didn't kiss me just 'cause I wanted it, roight? Y-ya wanted it too?"

Roadhog snorted and pushed his hand away. "I've wanted it for a while."

Junkrat knew he had to look goofy with the dazzling grin plastered across his face, but he couldn't help himself. He was happy in a way he wasn't sure he had ever felt before. "Cheers, mate!" He leaned up and kissed Roadhog greedily, grubby hands snaking up to clutch his face.

Junkrat relished in the touch, the stubble of Roadhog’s five o’clock shadow bristling beneath his fingertips. Delicious goosebumps shot up what remained of his biological arms, and he let his hands wander further up, wanting to know what other delectable sensations Roadhog had been hiding from him. His fingers bumped against the bottom of his gas mask. With no hesitation whatsoever (because really, he rarely questioned his impulses), he slipped beneath the mask.

Roadhog tensed up and grabbed his wrist.

“What, no? Bad idea?” Junkrat mumbled against his lips. “S’dark, not like I’m gonna see anythin’ ya don’t want me to see.”

After a moment’s contemplation, Roadhog released his hand. Emboldened at the indirect permission, Junkrat slid the gas mask off of Roadhog’s head. It tumbled to the ground behind them. True to his word, he couldn’t make out anything under the cover of absolute darkness. He let his hands do the seeing for him, skimming up over his face.

He stilled when he reached the upper right side. The pads of his fingertips traced over twisted flesh, finding all the whorls and trenches of the scars left behind after a nasty burn.

Suddenly Roadhog’s violent reaction in the bottle shop made a lot more sense, as did his health reasons for wearing the mask. Smoke inhalation coupled with irradiation could do some serious lung damage.

He was going to say something about it, something stupid and senseless probably, but then Roadhog was pinning his hands to the floor and kissing him deeper, and the question flew out of his head entirely. There’d be time to prod for answers later. They had all the time in the world.

The nonverbal encouragement just made him all the more eager, and he strained against the weight of Roadhog’s hands. Unable to budge an inch, he tried to work his tongue between Roadhog’s lips and, upon gaining entry, lapped up into his mouth.

Roadhog pulled away from him. “We have to work on that.”

Junkrat laughed, high-pitched and gleeful. “If that means we get to practice until I get it down, then I’m game!” Another giggle slipped out as he positively squirmed with delight beneath Roadhog. It occurred to him that this was how they’d started their relationship, on the ground with Roadhog looming over him in the dead of night.

“Mmm.” In the inky black of nighttime, he couldn’t be sure, but he thought he could make out Roadhog’s large thumb brushing across his lips before he reached for the fallen gas mask and pulled it back on, obscuring his face once more. _Shame_ , Junkrat thought. Burns or no burns, he thought that Roadhog’s face would be a national treasure.

 _Treasure._ “Hey,” he said, the words coming out more breathless than intended. “Wanna see me treasure?”

A wheeze of amusement emitted from the filters of Roadhog’s gas mask. “Sure.”

Junkrat threw off the covers of his sleeping bag and retrieved his tire from where it lay a mere few feet away. “We’ll need light,” he said, hefting it in his arms and lugging it onto the kitchen table. Roadhog turned on the light above the table, the retro bulb that dangled from the ceiling swinging on its string.

He was about to dismantle the tire when something clicked in his rusty memory. “Wait. I got somethin’ else to show ya first.” He dragged the pink duffle bag over and dug around until he found the rings he had stashed inside. “Forget my treasure for a second. Thought ya might want to have yers back too.” He held the rings out to Roadhog, nestled in his palm.

Roadhog stared at them for a long moment before accepting the offered gift. “You got these back for me?”

Junkrat fidgeted, suddenly unsure about whether or not he’d done the right thing. “Well, yeah -- they’re important to ya, ain’t they?”

“Yes,” Roadhog answered. He slipped the rings on his fingers. “They’re all I have left of my family.” He didn’t go into further detail.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Junkrat didn’t know what to say. “Oh--” Whatever was going to come out of his mouth came to a halt when Roadhog placed a heavy hand on his shoulder and drew him close.

“Thank you,” Roadhog said, the snout of his gas mask pressed against Junkrat’s head.

A glow of contentment flooded Junkrat, a warm and fuzzy feeling that radiated out from his heart. “Ain’t nothin’ worth thankin’,” he said, unnaturally modest at Roadhog’s approval. “It was the roight thing to do.” He didn’t want Roadhog to let him go, but when he finally did, Junkrat turned his attention back to the matter at hand. He wanted to share the knowledge of his treasure with Roadhog, after all this time.

“So. Time for _my_ treasure.” Junkrat disassembled the tire and rummaged around until he uncovered the mine strapped inside. "Aha!" he said triumphantly, holding it above his head.

"...Your treasure is one of your homemade mines?" Roadhog said. "I've been protecting you all this time for _this_?"

"No, no! It's what's _inside_ that's the treasure, see! It's a second hidin' place. Double the security."

"I don't think you can call it 'secure' if the first hiding place is inside a tire bomb."

"That's a matter of opinion. And yer opinion is wrong." Junkrat unscrewed the mine and pulled it apart. He emptied out the packing to find the USB safe and secure in its protective bubble. " _This_ is me treasure." He held up the tiny USB. “Kajura.”

“Kajura,” Roadhog repeated. “The Rainbow Serpent. What about it?”

Junkrat’s face cracked into a smirk. “God program. I could put all the omnics, every last piece of mechanical junk under my control. Imagine that -- _me_!”

Roadhog started laughing, a low chuckle that swelled into a guffaw. “You're a god.”

Junkrat grinned and handed him the USB. “Naw, mate. _We're_ gods.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has read this far! Thank you to the wonderful readers who commented on just about every chapter, you are so special to me. And thank you to everyone who commented at all or left kudos, they make me so happy. You guys inspire me and I am so, so appreciative. I had so much fun writing this beast of a fic, and I hope that you had fun with it too. I AM kicking around some ideas for a sequel, so hopefully you’ll have a continuation of this to read in a few months! Let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see, I can always use the inspiration. Feel free to follow or ask questions or anything at jabberwockyx.tumblr.com, or add me on Battlenet PC at jabberwockyx #1631 if you want to play Overwatch sometime!


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